Hello all,
This
week has been a very very wet one. It has been raining practically
every day. And then the sun would come out and make it very very hot.
This week was more of a God testing me week to see if I would keep
working. It was very very difficult in that hardly anyone really wanted
to talk to us. But hey it ended great. WE GOT 3 investigators in
church and 2 will be baptized in about 2 weeks. Perla and Kevin are
coming along great. It’s a little frustrating with the mom though. The
dad is way way cool. He used to be the branch president here and then
moved to Argentina to work for a while but now he is back to help out
with his kids. His wife is a totally different story. She is a member
that has gone through the temple, but she just doesn´t want to give up
the little things in life that supposedly make her happy. She drinks,
smokes, and listens to loud music ALL day. I just really want to ask
her if she is happy or not. Of course she will probably say yes but
really I look at her, she is never smiling, she doesn´t talk with her
children, she is always yelling, she is always drunk and saggy eyed. It
is really sad because we want to help her so bad, and so does the Lord,
but she just doesn´t want to put the effort into changing her life.
Kevin and Perla had a few doubts because the baptism would be so soon
but he helped them see that we were going to be along the entire
spiritual journey helping them gain their own testimony of the truth.
So that they can feel within themselves that a baptism is the right
thing to do. It’s really good to have the him (the dad) there with us.
He can help us explain certain principles as well as it helps us in
helping him stay active in the church especially soon when he will
receive his calling.
We also got this other kid into church called Miguel. He is way cool. He
is about 16 years old and wants to change his life so that people won’t
think of him as a bad kid anymore. He smokes and drinks and parties and
gets home every day at like 6 in the morning. He came to church but
was super tired from the party that he just came from. He has good
intentions but he really isn´t being sincere about the changes that he
wants to make. He isn´t changing his friends, he still goes and
parties, he doesn´t listen to his parents. I´m sure that he will
continue to progress but in the end the decision will be his. We can´t
make him change his friends, but we can help him feel that it’s the best
thing to do for him.
Other
than that this week has been really slow and really wet, and HOT. I
got to do divisions with the other elders from our ward because I’m a
district leader now. It was actually way fun. I got to go into a
totally new area and just completely cover it. I didn´t care if they
had already clapped a house before; I would clap it again. It was cool
because we just got to talk to so many different new people and to see a
new place. I´m really excited to go and do divisions with the other
elders this week. Despite the rain the district is doing awesome.
There is an area in our district that really hasn´t been seeing
anything success for the past few months but this last week they got 5
people in church. More than anyone else in the district. Its so great
to see that maybe I’m helping other missionaries raise their goals and
go for the gold.
We
really do have an awesome district. We have really come together this
last week because we had a district activity. It was pretty chill we
just played some soccer and had a ping pong tourney. I made it to the
championships and then got destroyed by Elder Oberg. We are all just
chugging along and trying to do the best we can. We all just need to
remember that the success is given to us by the Lord. Trust in him and
he will guide us to the prize… a successful missionary.
Just
a last closing thought. I was thinking a lot this week about the dream
that Lehi had. The tree of life. In the scriptures it says something
along the lines that when the people ate of the fruit they were filled
with joy. From what I can tell, is that they were filled with joy
because of a few things. First, because they got to the tree of life
and partook of the fruit. One of the other reasons I want to think so,
is that they could REMEMBER their journey to the tree. Following the
rod. Ya I’m pretty sure it was hard. There wasn´t some magic carpet
that just picked them up and carried them while they sang “A whole new
world”. I´m sure that they were sweating and crying and crawling. But
in the end they held strong. They could remember their journey and that
made it even sweeter because they could see the progress and sacrifice
that they had made to get there.
Our
life here on earth is our journey. It’s not always the easiest. We
crawl, we cry, and we sweat; trying to be the people that we need to be.
We hold fast to the rod. HOW SWEET WILL BE THE FRUIT IN THE END OF
THE JOURNEY. HOLD FAST!!!!!! Keep moving forward, one step, one crawl
at a time. But never go backwards or let go of the rod. And always
remember the journey!!! Love you all
rohyhu
Elder Beatty
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