May 26, 2015: Rainy Days and Sundays

Hey yall,

It´s been a great week. As far as us being positive, finding lots of new investigators (18), teaching families, seeing two families come to church with us (Xiomara and Jackson came with their 3 sons), putting baptisimal dates, and finding joy in the small things, we had an amazing week :) The bad part about our week is that Sunday we had an sacrament meeting attendance of 58 people....11 of these were non members! Only 47 members came to church! Three less active families that we had visited and taught this week, that had committed to coming to church, didn´t come because it was pouring down rain :( But my companion and I are happy that some inactive youth that we´ve been trying to get to come to seminary, came to Luis´ baptism (investigator of the Elders) on Saturday.

Jeiner, Heiner, and Stewart

We continue to focus on aumenting seminary attendance and reactivating the youth in this ward. In fact, we are focusing a lot on a few young men and women that have less active families, Moises, Breiner, Jeremy, Alexandra, Jennifer, Andres, Andrey...Basically all of the young men and women in the ward are less active members or inactive...so we are searching them out, teaching their families, and bringing them to seminary and mutual and to church. Moises and Andrey came to church yesterday!!! for the first two hours :) yes! haha, and today we played basketball in our pday with Jeremy who is 14 and loves to play basketball :) He wants to play in the NBA (tyler would definitely be able to whoop him, haha but he plays with heart) so we played today, my comp and I against Jeremy and his friend (not good at basketball...my comp plays better than him haha). We kept the score close and I let them beat us by 1pt ;)

So we have been doing all that is humanly possible and not against the agency of Melany...but she didn´t come to church and now we will not be having a baptism this month :( But my companion and I are still in good animo because we will baptize Flory (an eternal investigator that only has to stop smoking to be baptized) who we are helping her to stop smoking for her baptism the first week in June. We have a family that we will help be married and baptized the 25 of June as well, that came to church yesterday! We are looking at the positive and staying with good spirits because we know that all is well when we trust in the Lord and are obedient with exactness.

Elder Evans, our district leader, is such a good example of staying positive in any circumstance. He has oscilosis (dont know how to spell it) and is in constant pain. However, he is constantly helping us to look at the bright side of things. We have lots of unity in the district of San Carlos even though Pital is far away. Ward unity exists, but the number of members that really understand ward missionary work or saving lost sheep is really poor. I have high hopes for Ward San Carlos, but the testimonies of members are weak and we need more leadership. We will keep giving it our all, and I hope that the members will be moved in their hearts to be more active and to work more.

Lately I have been thinking a lot about the pioneers and their faith and obedience. They suffered so much in order to obey the prophet´s voice which they knew was called of God. Am I willing to do as much as they are in order to follow God´s appointed leaders? Are we like the sons of Helaman who obeyed his every word. They knew that he was not perfect. But they trusted in his calling and duty to lead them in God´s name to protect their familes, homes, and beliefs. Do I do my best to obey with exactness the prophet, the apostles, the seventy, general presidencies of young men and young women, mission presidents, stake leaders, bishop, zone leaders, sister training leaders, district leader...etc. I know that God is a God of order. He does not walk with us, but his servants here on earth are here among us. Do we follow their inspired counsels? I certainly will do my best to be obedient and diligent in heeding God´s servants.

I know that Thomas S. Monson is a prophet of God. I support him and his counselors and the apostles. I know that they posess the keys of the Priesthood to direct God´s work of salvation. We are a prophet-led people.

With love,

Hermana Flake