Holllla
hola hola ladies and gents. I hope everybody`s week was swell! My week was
pretty great!
So, i
don`t think I have ever contacted so much in my whole mission. We`ve turned
into some machines. But you know what? I now like SUPER love contacting. I
liked it before, but now I like super love it. We kind of have made it a game
now. It`s awesome. And our companionship is seriously rockin`. We have things
we need to work on with being more diligent as a companionship, but we get
along fantastically and have great flow when we`re teaching!
Last
Monday, we went to Gabriela and Edita. Gabs wasn`t there at first, so we taught
Edita, but Gabriela`s boyfriend Cristian who`s a member was there for his last
night before going to military boot camp, so he sat in on the lesson with us.
When Gabriela got home we had already finished and Edita went to bed, so the
three of us started chatting in English (because Gaby likes to practice her
English with us ;)) And then, she started to tell us about a coworker of hers
who is absolutely AWFUL to her at work and says awful things to her about being
a member of the church. We asked her how long it had been going on, and she
said...four years. FOUR YEARS. And she just started crying and said in English
"I am so sad all the time. She is so mean."
My heart has never broken so much for somebody. I have never seen bubbly, happy
Gabriela cry. Ever. And then she said "And Hermanas....I really miss my
Dad. He would know just what to say." And she was just crying. We said
everything we could to comfort her. She said she didn`t know whether she should
quit her job or not and just start going back to school to live her dream of
being an English teacher, so we told her we would do a fast together with her
the next day to help her make a decision.
The
next night while we were doing our fast, she texted us and said "how are
you doing in your fast? Thank you hermanas. Thanks to you two, I have felt
today more love from the Savior and have brought myself closer to him. You are
my best friends!" It was really cool. No big amazing miraculous revelation
came, but it was just great to have her say that and to be able to help
somebody we love so much. She is still working on making a decision but she`s
doing great :)
Bummer
that Colombia beat Uruguay on Saturday....yeah, we all mourned. But you guys,
you have to see what happens to this place when Uruguay wins the last game of
the first round. You think 4th of July is big? Come to Uruguay during the World
Cup. When we won on Tuesday (yes, I say "we." I`m Uruguaya now.), the
whole world exploded with blue, yellow, and white. And they did parades. Like,
legit parades of cars and people and madness. And it`s kind of awesome for us
as missionaries, because it makes it so that the whole world is a lot happier.
You just have to walk past somebody and yell "Uruguay!" And they
automatically become you`re friend. I love their passion here. Don`t worry, I
guess I can be American again now that the U.S. is still kickin` there. That`s
pretty cool. Too bad Suarez bit an Italian and got kicked out of the Cup. We
probably would have won. Someobdy should tell the little dog Dandy that bit me
last week to stop teaching bad habits to professionals.
Yesterday
was seriously amazing. In a few weeks, we will be doing a musical type fireside
for the stake (in this mission, every stake is a zone.) So we had our first
rehearsal as a zone yesterday. President Bueno sat in on it, and then after
wanted to share a spiritual thought with us. So he started asking about some
scriptures that talk about fruits. Then, he read with us the story of Enos. He
focused on three things:
1.
Like Enos, we as missionaries have been taught by our parents, and we remember
those things now that we`re in the mission.
2.
Like Enos, we sometimes have internal conflicts with our own selves and the
adversary.
3.
Like Enos, that fight continues until our soul is hungry...hungry for answers,
hungry for forgiveness. We have this overpowering need to be filled with the
mercy and love of God.
And
then, he talked about fruits. And sometimes as missionaries, we focus too much
on fruits of numbers. Baptisms. Number of charlas. If we have leadership
positions. He is TOTAL capo, and even he said "In my misison, I never
trained. I was never DL, ZL, assistant, and I had way fewer baptisms than most.
This embarrassed me for years, even after my mission. But Elders and Hermanas,
those aren`t the fruits that matter. The fruits you should focus on are the
fruits of Christ. Your relationship with Him. If your soul can be satisfied by
His love. I promise you, if you base your whole mission off of numbers, you
will go home and the adversary will be there waiting, and he will pester you,
and in a few years, you`ll be inactive. I know it, because I`ve seen it.
Transform
yourselves into men, transform yourselves into women. When you go home, your
family and friends will probably be waiting for you at the airport. You`ll
celebrate. You`ll go to the office of the stake president. He`ll release you.
You`ll take off your nametag. You`ll leave. And who do you think will be
waiting for you outside? The enemy. He will be waiting, I say that without a
doubt. Base your testimonies and your missions on your own conversion. Bring
YOURSELVES to Christ. Everybody else will follow you later. Trust in him, and you
won`t falter. Do that, and you won`t walk out of that stake president`s office,
no longer a missionary, to face the enemy alone. He will be with you.
Let
Him satisfy your hungry soul. Get on your knees tonight, and ask for Him to
fill you. He will.
Elders
and Hermanas, look to Christ. Find Christ. He is the fruit."
I have
never felt the Spirit so strong in my whole life. Every single missionary in
our zone needed that. I needed that, so much. I think all of our souls were
hungry, and he helped. He said "I don`t know who need this message, but
just know that that is the fruit. You are doing okay. Trust in your
Savior." All of us talked about after how he talked about EXACTLY what was
in our minds and hearts. If anything, we said that us 26 missionaries here in
Artigas needed to be here this change to be able to hear that.
In
everything you do, look for Christ. Christ is the fruit. I love Him more every
day, ad I feel His love every day.
I love
you, I love you, I love you!
Hermana
Dolan
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