Chapter 32: Power to Overcome the Adversary

 

2/25

Today was carnival. If you don't know what carnival is, ask your parents. Today was also our day for interviews with Pres, so we got ready extra early so that we could be sure to be there on time. Well, we were a lot more worried about timeliness than Pres; An hour and a half after interviews should have started and still no sign of Pres, so we call up the executive secretary and he wasn't super helpful so we were like, "well, that's great" and then we all went home. Then the Mota's invited us to lunch which was amazing because our lunch cancelled on us. After lunch we went out to teach lessons, which didn't work very well. We were able to teach someone new, but in the spirit of Carnival she wasn't interested in our message. Other than that we just talked to members who thought that Pres was crazy for having us work today.

2/26

Today was great, we had conference with Pres, he taught us a lot of the basic stuff LilJ and I should have been doing but had no idea because no one taught us so that was fun. Afterwards we went to work in our area, but today wasn't the best since our area is still experiencing the effects of carnival. The one really cool lesson that we had to day was with a contact named Bia. Bia is ~17 and somehow NOT a snake [a girl who only listens to the missionaries because they're handsome] which blows my mind. She's really interested in learning more so we accidentally tried to give her the entire Gospel in one night, but she loved it so we were really excited about that contact.

2/27

Today was interesting. We had a fiasco trying to receive our washing machine: We heard from the secretary of houses that our washing machine was coming today (thanks to Sister Caetano), and that we had to stay in house all day until it came. We weren't too worried because it was supposed to come at 9:00 so we weren't too worried. Starting at about 10:00 we were calling him every hour and ended up having to cancel our lunch so that we could continue staying in our house until 4:00 when the Secretary called us up like, "bro, my bad, I thought today was the 28th" so we only got like, four hours to work because of that and how long it took us to walk to an investigator's house who lives incredibly far away. I was very annoyed.

2/28

Today was a repeat of yesterday, just reread 2/27 and it's a pretty accurate representation of what happened today. We waited for a washing machine that didn't come, went to work briefly and got way less done than we hoped to. The one cool thing is that three of our investigators passed interviews for baptisms tomorrow: Priscilla, Gabriela, and Maria.

2/29

Today was the baptisms for our three investigators, which was a really cool experience, and I even got to baptize Maria who was only eight years old. It was a really special day though.

3/1

We didn't have investigators in church today, it's honestly a really big testimony builder to me about the importance of working. It was really sad that we weren't able to have people in church but LilJ and I committed to working way harder next week, and now that this whole washing machine disaster is over there's nothing (hopefully) stopping us. I feel like that's what someone who wants to get kicked down by bad luck would say.

Today's spiritual thought comes from a couple things I've been studying this week:

From Peter M. Johnson's talk "Power to Overcome the Adversary" he identifies three tactics the adversary uses to try to mislead us: Deception, distraction, and discouragement. As Latter Day Saints we strive to see as God sees, to not be deceived, and understand the importance of persevering to the end, to not be discouraged, but distraction is something we are all very much subject to: Distraction is anything that takes away from our opportunity to do God's work. To some degree, we all allow distraction into our lives, sometimes just so that we can relax. In Uchtdorf's talk "We Are Doing a Great Work and Cannot Come Down", he recounts the biblical story of Nehemiah, who was permitted to oversee the reconstruction of the destroyed walls of Jerusalem. This incredible task was completed in 52 days, because Nehemiah united the hearts of the people to their task, even amidst countless threats Nehemiah did not allow others to sway his focus from his goal. Nehemiah recounts his response to one of those threatenings in Nehemiah 6:3, "And I sent messengers unto them, saying, I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down: why should the work cease, whilst I leave it, and come down to you?" 

I have seen missionaries exhausted from working, those who have already served for a long time and don't feel that they have the strength to go on. I have also seen those who somehow keep working, even when they're exhausted and feel that they do not have the strength to continue. When we are on the Lord's errand we are not alone, of this I testify because I have already received his strength to continue many times. I have walked on blistered feet and without enough sleep and continued not because of my strength but because the Lord will strengthen his servants.

It is possible to serve God with single heartedness for your entire life. Our experience in mortality is not to learn our strength but to learn God's. God will strengthen you to do his work as much as you allow him, and if you will not be distracted from the tasks he gives you, refusing to come down from his great work, even amidst mortal weakness, you will learn God's eternal strength and the Joy of the Gospel. you will echo Nehemiah's cry in verse 9, "Now therefore, O God, strengthen my hands" because there is no greater joy than in working with God.