Take Me to Church (Week 12)

Hello everyone! :)

It's strange that 3 months have already passed since I entered the Missionary Training Center! So much has happened and time has passed so quickly. I am grateful to the Lord for this opportunity to grow and learn every day how to become a true disciple of Jesus Christ.

This week I had the opportunity to do a division with Elder Carvajal from Chile! The division went from Tuesday to Wednesday and it was great. He was super enthusiastic when knocking doors and we were able to find a lot of new people and mark some baptismal dates. He also bought me food along the day which puts him up there with my favourite missionaries. Haha, but it is always good to go teaching with other missionaries and learn something new!

Last week, me and Elder Yegros were knocking doors on a street and with every door that we knocked we found no one who was slightly interested. Everyone was either Catholic or "busy". We were slightly discouraged as we neared the end of the street but were determined to knock every door before moving on. On one of the last streets of the house we knocked and out came a woman called Geralda. She let us in and we discovered that her husband had died just under two years ago and she had not yet found peace. Originally we began teaching her the Gospel of Jesus Christ but as soon as she talked about her husband we began teaching the Plan of Salvation. The spirit in the room was amazing and she kept saying how wonderful our message was and that we had brought peace to her heart. She accepted a baptismal date and we have been teaching her since. We also met her daughter and son-in-law who have a LOT of questions and were glad to hear that they were right in thinking that their baby son does not need to be baptised as he has no sins. Its amazing the miracles that can happen as you listen to the people and don't just do a lesson on auto-pilot teaching whatever first comes to mind. When we have the company of the spirit we can teach powerful lessons that will fulfill the person's needs at that instant.

This week we were unable to properly talk to the mother of the three boys we took to Stake Conference last week because she works day and night. So when we rolled up Saturday night asking for her permission it didn't really work. So this week we are going to work a lot with the boys and the mum to ensure we have at least 3 baptisms Sunday: Erik, Ryan and Antony. They are learning a lot and very fast, children are super intelligent and for sure more filled with the light of Christ.

Once again we did not baptise and although we felt sad and frustrated I was reminded of this quote by Elder Holland from his talk "Missionary Work and the Atonement":

"Anyone who does any kind of missionary work will have occasion to ask, Why is this so hard? Why doesn’t it go better? Why can’t our success be more rapid? Why aren’t there more people joining the Church? It is the truth. We believe in angels. We trust in miracles. Why don’t people just flock to the font? Why isn’t the only risk in missionary work that of pneumonia from being soaking wet all day and all night in the baptismal font? You will have occasion to ask those questions. I have thought about this a great deal. I offer this as my personal feeling. I am convinced that missionary work is not easy because salvation is not a cheap experience.Salvation never was easy. We are The Church of Jesus Christ, this is the truth, and He is our Great Eternal Head. How could we believe it would be easy for us when it was never, ever easy for Him?"

I know that the Lord will bless us as we are obedient, as we work diligently and seek to obtain the word before declaring it (D&C 11:21).

I love you all and am looking forward to hearing from you next week. Send me emails, I like hearing about the news on that side of the world! ;D

Elder Torres