It's been a great week doing the Lord's work. We had a few struggles
near the end of the week but we still worked as hard as we could,
which we were grateful that the Lord blessed us for our efforts.
On Wednesday, we had dinner over at the Whitfield's (Deborah was out
of town all of last week, so we didn't teach her. But she came to
church after her trip, read from the Book of Mormon, and kept other
commitments while she was away!) and we taught a friend of Sister
Whitfield's named Krista. Krista actually was really close to being
baptized a few years ago but it ended up not happening. It's always
the best when the members introduce the investigators because it flows
so smoothly right from the start. Krista told us she didn't have a lot
of self confidence in herself to be baptized. But we testified of the
power of the Atonement and helped her really feel the Spirit in really
feeling that she could actually do this. You could really see the
change in her countenance after the lesson, there was more hope
without question. I'm pretty excited to work with her towards that
goal of baptism! Anyone can get there, I have been a witness of that
for sure over my mission with doing interviews and helping my
investigators get to baptism as well.
Thursday was a blast! We had district meeting in Bridgeton (south of
Woodstown) which went so well. It was probably the best district
meeting I have ever conducted. It seemed like everything flowed and
everyone participated which make the District Leader's life a lot
easier because you can go off of insights others have instead of just
talking at everybody for an hour. After district meeting, we did an
exchange with the Bridgeton. Now, Bridgeton is a Spanish area, so it
was the first time since I was being trained I was in a Spanish area.
Fortunately, I had a good missionary back me up on my broken Spanish,
Elder Olvera. He's from Fort Worth, Texas and is Mexican, so we
clicked right off the bat with our Spanish heritage. It was an
experience for me because mostly all the lessons we taught were to
Hispanics who didn't speak any English at all. So I prayed a few times
in Spanish, I also taught in Spanish which actually didn't go as bad
as I thought. There were times where I just couldn't find the right
words, so Elder Olvera translated for me in some points of lessons.
But it went so well. We taught 7 lessons that day and everyone in
Bridgeton seems to be pretty humble. Those Elders actually have a
baptism this Sunday which I am very excited for! My hope is all the
areas in my District get one baptism this transfer. So far it is
looking like it will happen which is pretty exciting! But it back on
the exchange, I had so much fun being in a Spanish area for a day. It
made me really miss my Dad a bit, but it was a good kind of missing if
that makes sense.
Friday was an experience for sure. After we swapped back, we went to
take care of a member's front and back yard. Now, I was a little
nervous because I hadn't mowed a lawn in almost a year and Elder
Brewer had never mowed a lawn before. Also, these lawns were huge. But
it actually went pretty well, two hours later it was done and we
celebrated with some great chili dogs for lunch. Unfortunately, Elder
Brewer pretty much struggled the rest of the weekend with heat
exhaustion. We had to spend an extensive amount of time for him to
recover the past few days. It can be a little hard to stay in, but the
Lord was definitely building our patience as we stayed in. I was
thankful Deborah came to church is progressing very well in the
Gospel. Her baptismal interview is in about 2 weeks and her baptism
will be the first Sunday of August. I'm very excited and pray that
Deborah will be able to continue to progress towards baptism. We are
taking her and another investigator, Elizabeth, to the Philadelphia
Temple on Sunday. They have a special first viewing on Sunday for the
missionaries of the missionaries and their investigators. So Sunday is
going to be very exciting. We know both of them will feel the Spirit
within the building. It's going to be an exciting week!
I hope for all of you that you may truly take time to visit the
temple, even if it's just to visit the grounds. It truly is a place of
refuge from the world. I'm so excited to be inside a temple for the
first time in over a year. To just be inside even before it is
dedicated will be a special experience for me. I pray all of us make
take advantage of the special blessings that are given from these holy
houses of the Lord. May each of us find inner peace as we continue to
work towards returning to our Father in Heaven through the temple.
Elder Cortes
Woodstown, NJ
No comments:
Post a Comment