Austin: 5/19/2014 - The blessings and the challenges of the Lord!

Hola Familia!

 

So I have like 18 hundred emails because we didn´t write last week, so I´m writing first, and I´ll reply to questions later if I have time. We didn´t write this week because 1) we talked on Sunday and 2) of our P day last monday. We got together as the mission, like almost all of us, and we had a "mini world cup" we played soccer, country vs. country. It was way fun. Probably the best p day of my mission. And I don´t even like soccer all that much! But we left monday morning at 6:30 in the morning, and got back at about 6:30 at night. So we didn´t have time to write. It was really fun. 

 

So this week, was a pretty normal week, mostly. We went through the week, teaching, working, and all that fun stuff we do in the mission. But on Saturday night, when I wrote in my journal, I realized how much the Lord has been blessing me. Me and elder Jara are not perfectly obedient. I don´t deny it. It´s impossible. But we do all that we can. And the Lord has blessed us. In three months together we´ve baptized 5 people. That´s a blessing. When I came, there was nothing here. We didn´t have a single invest preparing for baptism. But we worked our tails off, and the Lord blessed us to baptize 5 people. One of them was this saturday. Melisa Garro got baptized Saturday night! That was such a blessing. She was so ready, so prepared. She had some problems with some of the commandments, but dropped everything the day we taught her the lessons. She had a lot of opposition, including her family. But she fought through it all, and she was able to be baptized! It was a blessing to me to be able to see the change in her, see her repent and come unto Christ. That showed me, without a doubt, that the Lord blesses us, when we do all we can.

 

On Sunday, we had the challenge. We went to church, and Melisa wasn´t there. So I thought "she´ll come. It´s the hora peruana. she´ll come" And she didn´t come. So then the sacrament started and I thought to myself "when they open the door after, she´ll be the first one in the door"But she didn´t walk in. So we went to call her, and her phone was turned off. So Jara went and searched for her with a member, and I stayed in the church just in case she came. Later, Jara came back. Alone. She couldn´t come. He told me that she was home, but her parents wouldn´t let her leave. Like I said earlier, her family didn´t really want her to get baptized, but they didn´t stop her. But something they said saturday night or sunday morning scared her enough that she wouldn´t go to church. That was sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo hard for me. She can still get confirmed next week, but it´s so hard to see the tempations that Satan gives us. I have had to pray sooooo hard to have the Lord help me accept His will for me and for Melisa. The Lord knows what He´s doing. He is shaping me into the missionary/person/father that He needs me to be. I know there´s a reason, and that if we do all we can now, He´ll bless Melisa, she´ll overcome her fear, and she´ll be confirmed. 

 

I know the Lord blesses us through our challenges. He has the way for each one of us to come back to Him, and gives us what we need to make it.

 

Love,

Elder Schouten