January 25, 2016

Hola!  This week was good, we worked really hard to find new people to teach, and to improve our teaching.  I have really seen my teaching skills improve this week, and I know that is through the atonement of Christ and the holy ghost that I have improved.  My time here has really improved my testimony of Ether 12;27, which says that God gives unto us weaknesses so that we will be humble, and if we humble ourselves before him and have faith in him, he will make our weaknesses strong.  I like how it says HE will make our weaknesses strong.  It isn't us.  It is through the cleansing power of the atonement that we have this wonderful opportunity to improve.  Whenever I try to contact someone, or teach a lesson, and I'm not focused on recieving help from him, it isn't very successful.  But when I come before God in humility, saying "I can't do it on my own.  Please help me."  that is the moment when I have success.  My time in the mission so far has been very humbling, and I realize now that these humbling moments have been preparing me to rely completely on the Lord.  I am thankful for these moments of tribulation, where God refines me into who he needs me to be.

This week we worked and worked and didn't seem to have much success despite our hard work.  We were both a little frustrated as we visited appointment after appointment, and nobody seemed to be home.  We walked a ton, trying to find people to teach, but hardly anybody was ready to listen.  Elder Silvestre decided that he wanted to fast to find people to teach, and so I agreed.  After our fast, we started searching once more for people to teach, but just like before, nobody seemed to be home!  It was hard to not see an immediate result.  But we kept working hard, and finally we found someone that surely was prepared by God.  One of our appointments fell through, and so we went to visit one of the members.  A friend of the family was visiting, and so we asked her some questions.  Turns out she took lessons from the missionaries before, and had been attending church.  She said she wanted to be baptised, she just didn't know how to do it!  So we set a baptism date for her and started teaching her.  It was cool, all week we had been working so hard without hardly any success, and then we "just happened" to stumble upon somebody who was pretty much ready for baptism, she just needed a gentle push.  It strengthened my testimony that this is the lord's work, not my work.  All I need to do is become an instrument in his hands.

This wednesday, we had an awesome opportunity to watch live the worldwide devotional for missionaries.  We heard talks from Elder Bednar,  Oaks, Anderson, and others, specifically directed to us missionaries!  I loved it!  It was like General Conference: missionary edition.  There were a ton of things that I needed to hear, so I have a bunch of stuff to work on now, haha.  I really liked a quote from elder Anderson which says "Always keep his (Jesus's) name on your lips."  He taught that whenever we don't know what to say as missionaries, we can always testify of the savior.  For me, this advice is really helpful, because I don't know what to say a good portion of the time, haha...  But as representatives of Jesus Christ, we really should testify of him in everything we do.  Another part I liked was in Elder Bednar's talk.  He said that our role as missionaries is to always be a worthy vessel in which the spirit can teach.  I always need to remember that the spirit is the teacher, not me.

Well, now I would like to take a bit of time to talk about roosters.  Here in Mexico, they love roosters.  They're a bit obsessed with them.  One of their favorite things to do is to have rooster fights.  They all bring their prized rooster and pit them against each in a grand rooster tournament.  I've never been to one of these tournaments, (cause I'm a missionary and all, and we don't have a lot of time to attend rooster fights) but one day, I would like to see what all the hype is about.  They literally train their roosters.  We visited someone the other day who is a rooster trainer.  That's his profession.  Rooster Trainer.  He showed us all of his training methods, and basically, now I know everything I need to know to be a rooster trainer myself.  I think all of this is super hillarious.  It reminds me of pokemon, in a way.  So yeah, they are a lot of roosters here.  Every morning its like a constant stream of cock-a-doodle-doos. 

Welp, thats all for this week.  Love you all, adios!

Elder Lindsay