Monday, April 13, 2015

One thing that happened this week was a miracle.  With our recent convert Luis, we were teaching him and we are going over the lessons again.  He is getting worse because his pain is getting more and more in his head.  And still the doctors don't know what is wrong.  He was getting discouraged and it is hard.  Anyways, we starting teaching him about the Book of Mormon and we read the last two parragraphs of the introduction with him.  He normally reads extremely slow and it is tough and his head hurts.  He started reading and he was flying through it and the spirit just entered the room.  When he finished he looked up at us, stunned, and said, "I DON'T FEEL ANY PAIN!!!" He repeated the words and had the first smile I had seen on his face in a very long time.  He said that we are the only thing that helps his head.  Every time we go over, his pain seems to go away.

Unfortunately, his time without pain only lasted for a little bit.  He came to church on Sunday and the Bishop asked me to sit on the stand because I had a talk.  So I sat up there and during the sacrament hymn I saw my comp get up and leave with Luis.  I was like uh oh, what do I do, what do I do?  Because here in South America if you aren't there at the end of the hymn the door is shut and you don't get the sacrament.  It was the second verse out of 3 and I decided to get up and go see what was going on.  Luis had a terrible pain and was in the bathroom because he needed to spit or something and so I got them back in before the hymn ended and after my companion told me that Luis wants to tell us every time that we leave his house that he hopes that God blesses us because he doesn't know if he is going to live.  At the end of church I was talking with him and shook his hand and he started to cry and said please don't stop visiting me.  It was tough to see.  Being a missionary, you really develop a love for the people that you teach and they develop a love for you.

Also, we are teaching a grandma and her granddaughter and they have both accepted a date for the 9 of May.  It would be awesome.  I hope that they are able to come to church and be baptized this day.

Also, this Sunday I had to give a talk in sacrament.  Of course on missionary work.  People in this ward are probably getting tired of listening to me haha.  I think this was my fourth talk in this ward.  But I like to talk so it was good.  I talked a little bit about the talk the Elder Bednar gave two conferences ago.  About why we invite people.  I talked about how Alma Dad and Alma Son both had conversions.  They were both doing bad things at first and then they repented and started to preach the gospel.  Alma Son said that he repented almost to the death but after, his soul felt no pain.  Then after he had the desire to share the gospel and this message.  I talked about how we should all have this joy because like the third article of faith says, we believe that everyone can be saved through the ordinances of the gospel.  ( not the exact words ) but an important word there is THROUGH.  A person has to be a member if they want to be saved.  There  are really only two options.  Salvation or no Salvation.  If we want to be completely forgiven we have to be baptized and after partake of the sacrament worthily each weeki.  So someone has to be a member to gain salvation.  To someone it might sound harsh but it is like that.  That is why we should be so anxious to share this message with everyone.  We are literally bringing the Salvation to people.  

I love you so much family.  I pray for you all.  Have a great week!