My new companions a hard worker so we had a lot of success this week. we werent able to bring anyone to church but we had a miracle. we've really seen the hand of God in our work, and that he blessed us for our diligence and obedience. on thursday we were finishing up our contacts a bit late (like 8 o clock) and we clapped in a house that had lights on, that usually doesnt have lights on. a lady (Sofia) came out, we contacted her and invited her to be baptized and she accepted. she also told us that she's usually only home on weekends, but that she was home that day cus it was a holiday. so we had an appointment for saturday and two members that had said they could accompany us werent able to, (we cant visit women alone) so we went to a family of members (family 1) that lives near her. the dad (who's on the high council) was sitting outside. we asked if he could help us and he accepted. we went, taught a little bit, then asked the member that was with us to testify a bit. he started talking and then she really opened up, more than she had done so before. she told us that she had had three surgerys in two months, and that she was alive cus a missionary (from our church?) had gone and prayed for her, and that she had then decided to join our church. that helped me realize that God has a perfect plan for the salvation of all his children that wanted to be saved, and that sometimes when it seems that things arent working out as we want them to, it's so that they can work out as God wants them to. if the other two members had been able to help us, we wouldnt have gone to the member that did help us, and the lesson wouldnt have gone the same. she couldnt go to church cus she went to help her daughter who was sick, but we went to visit her yesterday again. again, the member that had said he would accompany us couldnt come, so we went to another member family (family 2) that lives close to Sofia, where one of the daughters is a returned missionary. we asked her for help and that her brother or dad could also come. she wanted to but the men didnt. so we said we would go to family 1, get someone else to help us, and then come for her to go all together. in the walk to family 1, we found the daughter of the first member that helped us and her boyfriend. we asked if they could help and they accepted, so we all went. in that lesson i saw how much of a help members can really be in the lessons. we realized that Sofia had attended church before so she can get baptized earlier than the date that we had originally set. so we invited her to be baptized the 17th of January, and she said that she thought she should wait a bit more, but then she turned to the members and asked what they thought. thanks to the members that were there, we were able to resolve her doubt and help her to accept a date for the 17th. (lesson learned: go help the missionaries)
something that i was able to learn this week is that a lot of times when we say a certain time of day or week is harder to work, it's really all in our head and that our doubts and fears impede us from being able to find and teach the people that God wants us to teach in that moment. when we leave behind our doubts and our excuses God can help us grow and learn and work the miracles that he wants us to work. for example a lot of missionaries complain that on holidays in paraguay everyones drunk and dont want to listen to us. in the missionary handbook it says that holidays are great opportunities to find and teach families. we went out on thursday with that in mind and were able to find and teach a lot of families.
we also recieved testimony that the words spoken by Jesus in Matt 10:31 are true, when he said ''ye are of more worth than many sparrows'' and that if God cares for sparrows he'll care for us. on saturday morning the members that we had lunch planned with called and cancelled, and about half an hour later, while we were worrying about what we would eat, another member family called us and invited us to eat with them.
I get along pretty well with my new companion. also with my new housemate.
it's really hot here. also when people speak guarani, i can normally understand quite a bit of what they're saying, which is cool.
Elder Woodfield
