And once again, I'm seated in the same LAN house, with that same relaxing feeling of pday. It's really amazing how fast time flies, and how routine my life has become. It feels like just yesterday I was sitting here writing my last email.
Once again, there were a lot of things that went down this
week. But I'll keep it to just a few short highlights.
 |
| So grateful for the member families that feed our missionaries. Four at a time! |
X [In order to protect people's privacy, I am moving away from an initial to a simple X for female and Y for male, Note that there will likely be multiple X and Y in each letter and they may or may not be the same person.] is progressing really well. I can't believe that just
two weeks ago we talked to her on the interphone and she said we could come
back and teach her. She went to church this week and she enjoyed it. We are
going to continue working with her this week to prepare her for the 20th, but
things are going swimmingly as of now. Keep her in her prayers!
This weeks highlight was last night. When we came to
Itaboraí back in June, opening the area, the other Elders told us about the
people they were teaching and passed them to us, which can sometimes be a
difficult process. It took a while but we finally got to teach X and Y. X is a member of the church who was recently returned to Church and
Y is a strict Catholic who has read a lot of anti things about the Church,
but had been coming to Ala Itaboraí [Ward/congregation] recently. We had a dinner last night there
and then taught them about the love our Father in Heaven has for us. Y has
been pounded for some time now [from prior missionaries I imagine] about the Restoration and, because it was our first
visit with him, we didn't want to approach him with all the Restoration importance again. Our priority is to help him feel the Spirit, when that happens he will
be more open to us and open to accepting the message. We watched a video
and it instantly brought the Spirit into the room. We discussed some of the things
in the video and starting asking X and Y some questions.
The following was probably one of the most heartbreaking
things I've witnessed out here. After talking about the love our Heavenly Father has for us:
Elder S., "X, besides God, Christ and the Gospel,
what is the most important thing in you life?"
X in tears "My husband. I love him so much that
I can't imagine not being together with him, and being married after we
pass away. It pains me that he believes that this isn't possible."
We let the Spirit work and let Y reflect on that for a
few minutes.
Elder S., "Y, besides God, Christ and the Gospel, what is the most important thing in your life?"
After some time, and with a low, choaked up voice:
Y said, "My family and my wife......... more silence passes................I
just believe that after this life we all will live, but only as brothers and
sisters. and I cant get myself to believe in anything else than this"
It was heavy. The Spirit was strong. the love between them
was evident. The disagreement in faith overbearing for all of us.
We wrapped up the lesson, inviting him to REALLY ask our Father in faith, with desire to know the truth, without doubt, whether possible
or not.
We'll head back there this week to see how it goes.
Being a missionary is such a blessing, I love this work.
With everyday that passes, I feel the subtle changes in my heart, desires, and
behaviors. I feel the calling of being a servant of Christ bestowed upon me. I
witness others come close to our Savior, and that's what makes this sacrifice
worth it.
I love you guys so much, And hope you all have a great week!
Elder Siebers
No comments:
Post a Comment