The Spirit is the Key Element to Teaching

Tuesday was a really good day. Elder Rojas told me he needs to start learning English and asked me to help him. Okay! We also decided that day we are working more with the members to get more references. We have 12 investigators right now that we are going to continue working with, but we aren’t going to contact in the streets or knock on doors because we are going to work a lot with the members to get them more involved. The bishop has a great plan for the ward to get them involved too. We also had a lesson with Anaid. She has tons of questions but only relies on us for help to answer them instead of searching for herself. If she would just use the tools she has, she would understand a lot more.

Wednesday we had district meeting and talked about contacting and the importance of it. Yes we can receive referrals but it is important for us to contact to obtain more investigators and not soley rely on getting referrals. Our ward really needs the help though and by helping them or visiting with them and using this program of sharing Books of Mormon, we can help the members and receive referrals at the same time, and also continue to teach the investigators we have.

Thursday during study time I read and studied more about the talk I had to give on Sunday titled “The Hearts of the Children Shall Turn” by Elder Bednar. It is a very interesting talk about the prophet Elias and his ministry on earth, the spirit and about family history work. I had an outline of an idea with what I wanted to share, so I just needed to take the puzzle pieces I had and put them together. I’m going to be a pro at giving talks by the time I leave this ward, at least I hope to be.

Friday we had 2 lessons, one with Sandra, the tia de Alisson, and then with the Tapia family. The lessons went really well. I talked a lot more, was able to share scriptures, experiences and teach with the spirit during both lessons! It was great! My companion ended up helping me teach the lesson with Familia Tapia and I was so glad for that. I would have done a decent job myself, but because he helped me, we did a really good job. Also because the Spirit helped us teach them too. We definitely couldn’t have taught without the spirit. He is the key element to teaching a lesson correctly and helping our investigators hear and learn what they need to in order to progress closer to God.

Saturday my companion wasn’t feeling too good so we slept in for a couple extra hours. He really hasn’t been doing so good lately because his back has been hurting him and he has allergies. To top it off, he has a cold too. Hermana Urrea gave us permission to say in the house for 3 days so he could rest, but he decided we were going to work the days she told us he could rest... We had 2 lessons that day. One was with an inactive sister who doesn’t have any problems with the church but at the same time, doesn’t feel the need to come back. She has been inactive for about 5 years. Her husband is catholic and their son is just there. They don’t take him to either church. It’s really sad to see here in Mexico how many people get baptized in the church and then go inactive. Some have reasons or excuses, others just left because. We can only do so much as missionaries, the wards and the people themselves need to support and help each other, visit the less active and inactive and try to get them to come back to church. They depend on us to do a lot of that for them though.

Overall things are going pretty good with our investigators. We also have some new ones that I think will progress really quickly! And yeah we definitely need to come back and visit all the Book of Mormon landmarks and whatnot! PS you guys should totally buy that book I sent a picture of last week. It’s like 900 pages but it’s super awesome and I think you guys, especially dad would like it!

That's good you got the house put back together but dang that really sucks about the news that grandma got. I pray for her all the time and even if a miracle doesn’t happen where they can get rid of the cancer, at least we have the plan of salvation and we will be together forever! It’s hard now but it will all be worth it in the next life.

Thank you for that quote by Elder Uchtdorf. It is very needed right now. Thank you for everything mama! I love you so much! Have a great week!