Another week in the books.
This week was really great and the highlight was going to my last leadership council. It was really bittersweet because there are a lot of us going home (including my mission president and his wife) but it was an experience that I´ll never forget. I got to bear my last testimony to everyone there and it was really emotional but I could feel the Spirit and I´m so grateful for all that I could learn and experience. But it´s not the end!!! I still got 3 weeks to go so I´ll share more on that later...
Well besides the leadership council, this week was actually pretty tough for my companion and I here in our area. We´ve had to drop lots of investigators in these last few weeks, including our investigator, Yemelin who I´ve been writing to you all about these last few weeks. She was going to get baptized here soon, but we went by to visit her on Saturday and she barely even payed any attention to us. It turns out that she had been talking to her neighbors (there are tons of small churches all around her neighborhood) and they told her a bunch of lies about the church, the Book of Mormon, and other stuff like that. She now doesn't want to receive us anymore and we couldn't help but feel a little discouraged after talking to her. We did all that we could to testify to her of the truthfulness of the gospel, but she just rejected us and closed her heart to the spirit. We don't have too many investigators to work with currently, but there´s just one thing to do: move on and trust in the Lord.
Our mission president actually helped prepare us for this experience because his training focused on success as a missionary and how we should act after people reject us. We obviously can't help but feel sad that people that we love and that have received confirmations of the spirit that the gospel is true reject the gospel. But we cannot become discouraged and stop believing in ourselves or the Lord. We cannot be weak or lose enthusiasm. We need to move forward, be positive, be strong, forget ourselves, and put our trust in the Lord. This can apply to anything in our lives. We inevitably will have tough days from time to time, but we cannot let ourselves become discouraged or lose faith or we´ll never get out of the rut we have fallen into. Satan wants us to be discouraged. Don't let him win. Trust in the Lord and be happy. The Lord will always help us if we allow him to. I invite you all to remember that!
I hope everyone has a great week!
Elder Smith
Pics: 12 of the 18 missionaries that are going home this transfer (plus President and Hermana Laboriel), Barrio La Cruz, MTC buddy and I at the leadership council, we´re getting soaked in the rain all day every day, 5 1/2 hour bus ride back to Guanacaste after the leadership council
No comments:
Post a Comment