Hey
Everyone
Hope
everything is going well and that everyone is finishing up school
strong and are getting ready to leave for vacations. This is the
start of my 6th transfer in the field and total of 9 months in the
mission. The year mark is only 2 more transfers away. Man how time
flies. I got a new companion this week and it is my first time being
called to be "Senior Companion" technically (but I
really consider last transfer as my first, seeing as I did almost all
the teaching and planning by myself) But what can you do?
His
name is Elder Vallejo and he has been out 3 transfers so far. I am
his 3rd companion so in mission terms I'm his "Drunk
Uncle." I could not have gotten a better companion though. He is
from Guatemala and we are almost exactly the same, personality wise
and also mission focused wise. The only real differences is that I'm
white and do not speak fluent spanish and he is dark and grew up
speaking it. We get along so much better than all my other
companions. I'm not saying they where bad companions or anything but
either I don’t really mesh with people very well or I just don’t
have the best luck when it comes to that. But he is super in tune
with the spirit and is also obedient to all the rules, while at the
same time he can be laid back and cool about it. Its a really nice
change because in the past my companions have either been just
blatantly disobedient to the rules or they followed them because they
had to, but with Elder Vallejo its different. Together we obey all
the rules because we want to, and more because we enjoy receiving
those blessings that come with being obedient. I could have not
gotten an easier companion to be senior companion to.
We
been blessed this last week. There has been a huge difference in the
last week than in all of last transfer in terms of progression. Not
that Elder Humphrey and I didn’t do a good job in the area, but I'm
beginning to see why Elder Humphrey and I where put in this area.
Yeah we weren’t not able to teach anyone fully well enough for them
to be baptized, but what we did do, is help prepare these people to
receive the Gospel. All of the investigators we have loved a lot and
built relationships with a lot of them that will last forever. They
just eventually stopped progressing because we couldn't fully answer
every single doubt they had, but we gained such a personal
relationship with them that when Elder Vallejo got here, together we
can fully get these people back to progressing. We have seen some
great miracles this week.
The
hardest thing for us this week though is that the Stake has just put
its foot down on teaching people that want to come to the ward but
live out of the ward boundaries. They more made this move because
down here, there are so many people that choose that they want to go
to a different ward than the one they are currently in because
someone offended them, or they have more friends in the other one.
Which I don’t agree with at all. We don’t go to church to be
social, we go to show love and worship our God, and being together as
his children to support each other. But they are also applying it to
investigators as well. Maribel, (who has a Baptism date) and is
progressing well to that day, has introduced us to her family who is
super Catholic, at first they wanted nothing to do with us, but on
Thursday morning we helped them move and her mom and 2 younger
siblings got to know us pretty well and saw that we are really good
people. They started asking a bunch of questions and asked if they
could come to the lessons with Maribel and to church with her so that
they could learn more. We where so excited about it until Monday when
the Zone Leader told us about the new rule. It's a little difficult
to accept the rule seeing as we are a church of families and that
they will probably not come to church unless they go with Maribel.
But we will see what our mission President says, and follow that.
This
past week I had an awesome experience with knocking doors. The 2nd
day that Elder Vallejo got here, we where riding bikes to someones
house and a apartment complex behind some houses caught my attention.
I brushed off the feeling at first, because they where like hidden
behind trees and houses and there is only a little alleyway leading
in and out of the parking lot, but something told me to go there.
Sadly, I just continued on my way to the next appointment. The next
day we where on our way back from an appointment and they caught my
eye again. The feeling came back and I decided to call our next
appointment and reschedule it for the next hour. To my amazement they
said they where actually not home yet and was about to call and see
if they could move it. I took this to mean that we needed to knock
them right then. So we knocked and knocked and we didn’t really get
anything on the first floor and so we went up and started on the
second. On the very last door, a lady opened up, and started crying.
Opened the door and we found out that she had received a blessing
from mormon missionaries 20 years ago while in the hospital, she
doesn’t know who sent them or why they where even there, but they
gave her a blessing as she prepared for surgery. After waking up from
the surgery there was a group of doctors standing around her bed.
Turns out she was fully recovered. The doctors told her that they
had no idea what it was but told her it was witchcraft. She told us
that she didn’t believe them one bit and knows it was a blessing
from God. She never saw or came in contact with the church or
missionaries again. After the lesson she told us that the night
before and the next morning she was really confused and lost and was
praying for guidance. We knocked her door a few hours later. She said
though tears that she knows we were angels. There's not exactly a way
I can describe what It is I felt that day, but it was joy. Joy seems
to not be enough to describe it, but I really liked it, and my
testimony was strengthened because of it.
Well
I don’t have much time left, so I will end it here. There was so
many miracles wrought this week that if all of them where typed out
"this email would not be able to contain it."
I
love you All!
-Elder
Stewart
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