May 11, 2015: Faith In God's Promises

Hello fam!

Yesterday I saw each of you all grown up haha. Thanks for always being there for me. I love you all so much.

This week has been a bit rough. My comp and I are obedient and we are working extremely hard, and we have been working extremely hard to teach Melany and Hellen (they are sisters in Rosa´s family). Rosa likes to listen to us and participate in our lessons, but she will not come to church. She says she is catholic and will always be catholic and won´t come to our church even just to get to know it...so yeah. but her daughters, Hellen (16 years old) and Melany (10 years old) are learning and participating a whole bunch. Melany has come to church twice, and we have been working so hard so that Hellen would come. We have brought members over (the primary president, our mission leader, recent converts, etc. etc.) and saturday we gave her a tour of the church after we taught the Book of Mormon with Duais (our mission leader and a return missionary) and it went really well. She wanted to come to church, she committed to coming, we offered to go with her in car, and we told her that Satan was going to put a petty excuse or some kind of trial to tempt her to not come Sunday (yesterday). That´s just what he did...We recieved a text at 12am saying that she was having contractions (she is 8 months pregnant) and that we should pray for her, but that she didn´t think she would be able to come to church....I sent her messages telling her that we were praying for her and that this was the trial, but that she could defeat it....we called at 7:30am and she said that her mom was going to take her to the hospital instead of come to church with us.....ouch. Yeah, so that hurt. Her baptismal date was for the 30th of this month, but if she doesn´t have 3 times to assist sacrament meeting, she cannot be baptized. I have been trying to have faith and trust that everything will work out all right if we are just obedient, fasting, praying, working, having daily contact, using members, etc. that God would provide the miracles, or at least help us to reach our goals and to find those who are prepared and to baptize according to the wishes of President Wilkinson (2 baptisms each month per companionship), but it doesn´t seem to be happening.... I know that the promises are real and true, but my faith is lacking. I just have to accept that maybe God´s will is different from mine...haha. Maybe I have to learn to have more longsuffering and patience...yup that´s probably it.

Anyway, the good thing is that my companion and I have decided to work with reactivating members and recent converts from last year, and aumenting seminary assistance and church assistence. That is a real problem here in San Carlos, and even though it is hard because as missionaries we are expected to focus on investigators and preparing people for baptism, we will be focusing on finding those who are already baptized but who are not faithful or who don´t come to church. Presidnt Wilkinson promised us that if we reactivate, we will also baptize...until now we haven´t commited to reactivating faithfully...we have been looking for some of the inactives, but we didn´t really make it the priortiy. But now, it´s on. We will put the promise to the test. We are going to reactivate, reactivate, reactivate, and according to the promise, we are also going to baptize. Here we go! haha

Faith. I have been studying faith quite a bit. It truly is a power. Faith heals. Faith builds, faith moves mountains. Faith raises from the dead. Faith is a real power, but it seems so hard to obtain. Faith means we hope for things that we can not see, but that we know are true. I hope that the promises will be fulfilled that come from the mouths of prophets and leaders called of God. But Sometimes it is so hard to pass through the trial of our faith. When nothing seems to be going right. When everythings seems bleak,. When no one wants to accept us. When those that have accepted us once tell us they no longer want to learn from us, when they haven´t even given us a chance... That is my trial of faith. I know that the message we share is true. That is enough for me. He never said it would be easy. It was not easy for Him. Why should I expect it to be easy?

Well, I hope that reading this doesn´t put you all in a depressed mood. haha. I know that when we are obedient, when we follow the words of the prophets, when we do the little things, we are always blessed. Maybe not immediately, but we are always blessed.

Jessica and Troy :) you two are the closest ones preparing for the mission field. I just want to tell you both, that you are so blessed to be in this family. We are so blessed to live in the United States and to be in such a strong ward, and mormon community. We are extremely blessed. There are so many people who do not have the knowledge of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and therefore do not recieve the blessings for living it as we do. The call to serve a mission is to unselfishly allow others to recieve the same blessings we have. But yall can start now. We are always examples in everything we do as members of Christ´s church. And not just to non members. Do the little things to put on the full armor of God. Read and study the scriptures and the word´s of modern prophets and leaders. Pray with the desire to be lead by the spirit. Magnify your callings. Be a friend to those around you. Smile. :) Never think that you are not good enough. You are God´s children. We are children of God. We are blessed with that knowledge and the knowledge of how we can become like Him. I love you both. You are such good examples to me of hard work, obtaining and sharing talents, and diligence. But most of all you are my best friends. Keep up the good work, and be happy doing it :)

Well, my time is about up. My thoughts have been a bit scattered, so this email is a bit long and confusing, haha. So until next time :)

Love,
Hermana Flake