Chapter 52: A Brazilian Successes

6/21/2021

Today was our Pday, and it was incredible. We got to go to Black Canyon with a member, Brother Tullis took us over to Montrose to get to visit it briefly, and it was quite the sight to behold. Black Canyon is the deepest Canyon in North America, so getting to see it was a beautiful sight. We also got to see a lot of different people that I knew from Uncompahgre, and it was an amazing chance to reflect back on the different people I’ve gotten to connect with over the course of my mission.

6/22/2021

Today I got to go on exchanges with Elder Barstow. It was an awesome experience because I played a different role on exchanges than I normally do. Recently I’ve been trying to help the other missionaries around me to step up to getting to lead more themselves, and then give them tips later on what’s helped me in those situations as well. Elder Barstow really rose to the occasion, and we heard from a lot of members that they really needed to hear what he said, which hopefully helped him to gain more confidence more than anything else.

6/23/2021

Today I un-exchanged with Elder Barstow, we got to start teaching a 20 year old girl and arrange a very brief meeting to help her meet friends in the area. After our very brief meeting and the tour we gave her of the church building we started exchanges with the other companionship of Elders in our district. Elder Aguirre and I went with Elder Rhoten. Elder Rhoten is brand new on the mission so Elder Aguirre and I are excited to spend the day with him and get to learn more with him.

6/24/2021

Today we had a spiritually Earth-shaking lesson. We met Troy, Linda, and Julia, who live in a motel with some close family members. Troy was a baptized member of the Church, but we didn’t know that at the beginning of the lesson. We started talking to the family about the Plan of Salvation, and the father mentioned that he believed that this Earth was a time to learn to use our agency to prepare to meet God, a time to repent. I asked him how he knew that and Troy told us that it was just a feeling he had when he had thought about why he was here on Earth. I testified to him that he had been taught by the Spirit, he was like the prophets of old, God had taken it upon Himself to personally teach Troy, and he because he recognized the Spirit he knew truths that the wise often did not. When we shared that with him his countenance changed. He had been laughing the whole time, cracking jokes, and he said that felt like a spiritual slap in the face, the Spirit testified to Troy and he knew it was true. We extended a baptismal invitation to his family, invited them to church, to read from The Book of Mormon, and to pray, and they were excited to do it, they were so excited to read, they wanted us to come prepare them for church, they wanted to get baptized. They were so excited.

6/25/2021

Tonight we had a gun pulled on us. We were visiting the house of one of our potential investigators who we hadn’t had a lot of contact with, and showed up to her house pretty late. We were visiting a lot of other nonmembers in the area, and so we came by much later than we originally intended to. When we knocked on the door a woman called out on the other side asking what we wanted, I called back to her by “Sister” and her name, and then she immediately relaxed and opened the door, showing us the gun she was ready to shoot us with. I wasn’t as concerned about the gun as I was when she started waving it around carelessly saying that there were a lot of crazy people in the area, and started rambling so fast that I wasn’t completely sure whether she was as stable as she thought she was. 

6/26/2021

We spent all of today running around. Today was pretty hectic, we had a lot of people that we wanted to go and visit. In the process we got to meet some people on the road, and they were interested to talk to us since it had been so long since they had seen missionaries out on the road talking to people. We talked a lot about how the work was going now that COVID’s dying down here on the Western Slopes of Colorado, and we got a lot of “thank you”s for our efforts to bring the Gospel to the world. Everyone was very kind today.

6/27/2021

Today we had two of our friends come to church with us today! Deanie Papurt and Ashtian Turner came to church with us today. They had a great time, especially Ashtian. Ashtian had a lot of friends there in church from her high school, it was very convenient that so many were visiting that day, and having so many friends helped her to feel included, especially since that was her first time. We also got invited to a member’s dinner party for the Ward tonight, and they asked me to play music for them during it. I tried mixing up some of the songs I know like, “Families Can Be Together Forever”, and everyone loved it. 

Today the thought that I wanted to share comes from Jacob chapter 4 verse 13.

"The Spirit speaketh the truth and lieth not. Wherefore, it speaketh of things as they really are, and of things as they really will be; wherefore, these things are manifested unto us plainly, for the salvation of our souls. But behold, we are not witnesses alone in these things; for God also spake them unto prophets of old."

If we're willing to listen to the Spirit we can learn of that which has happened in the past as well as what will happen. The Spirit gives freely to all who ask. The commandment to ask combined with the promise that we will receive is one of the most repeated commandments in our recorded standard works. The righteous desires of our hearts are given us in accordance with our faith.