Week 54: The Spirit Knows What's Up

We started teaching 9 new people this week so now we have 39 people we're teaching. Some of them aren't really progressing though, so I guess it's time to let them go. 

We met with Ketsaly and Cesar on Tuesday and felt like we needed to talk about baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost. Before we even started talking about it Ketsaly brought up baptism. Coincidence?? I think not. She thought it was pretty cool that we were already planning on talking about baptism and after more than an hour of talking with them, Ketsaly decided she wants to be baptized on July 12th!! We still need to teach her some of the big commandments though so please pray that she may overcome any obstacles she has with them.  

Wednesday night we were walking around to close off the night and we started talking to these three old ladies sitting in their backyard named Leticia, Cecilia, and Choco. They told us they were of another faith and weren't too interested but we kept talking to them and set up a time to come back the next day. They were so excited to see us again and had us come sit at their kitchen table. We taught them about the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ and they had a lot of questions for us. Choco's husband was pretty vocal about his disagreements but he told us at the end that he loves us and that we could stop by anytime so.  At the end of our lesson they told us they made food for us, we had already eaten dinner, but we ate anyways and they really stuffed us haha. They are pretty set in their religion but the women wanted Book of Mormons and said they want to see us again before we leave Del Rio. Leticia said she wants to come to church sometime as well. They were seriously the sweetest old ladies. I want to adopt them as my grandmas. 

Sunday night we were street contacting and Elder Anderson had to pee haha so we were running around trying to find a place for him to pee which caused us to go through a park and find some bushes. After he was done, we decided to walk over to a road close by and BAM there was a family outside of their house having dinner. We asked them if we could share a message about Jesus Christ and they said yes! We ended up sharing the whole restoration lesson and they were very open to it. We gave them Book of Mormons, got the parents names (Everardo & Angelica), and set up another appointment! As Elder Anderson said, "That was a spirit lead pee". 

We went to stop by someone we're teaching named Angel (whom we've had trouble setting up lessons with recently) and her nephew, Daniel, answered the door. We asked if he might be interested in meeting with us and he said yes. We met with him on Monday and then also on Saturday and Angel and her husband ended up joining. Angel was telling us how her husband has fallen off the path and that she has been trying to bring him back to God but that it wasn't working. Then just a minute or so later he walked in the door, started talking to us, and said he wants to meet with us. Fast forward to Sunday... Daniel came to church and Angel came to the last hour of the Spanish Branch (she isn't available until 1 so she's not able to make it to our service). Juan, her husband, got called into work so he couldn't make it but he wants to come as well! 

Later on Sunday we were stopping by people and 90% of the people were really rude and didn't even give us a chance to speak. So that was a bit irrating but it definitely taught me patience and love! 

One of our members asked us to stop by someone he knows to give him a Book of Mormon. When we stopped by someone was outside doing yard work so we tried talking to him but he kept saying he was busy. I wasn't sure if it was the right person so I told him we just had a quick question and asked if he was Ronaldo and then he turned around and yelled "I already told you I'm busy!! If you don't get off my property..." and we quickly walked away. He had a gun on him too so we figured we shouldn't mess with him, especially cause were in Texas lol. Our member really did us dirty. 

I had so many experiences this week where I knew the spirit had lead me to a specific place or person. Or even people being lead to us! Most of the time I didn't even recognize in the moment that I had been lead by the spirit but looking back it is very obvious that God's hand was in everything we did. Even wrong turns and mean people played a part in directing us to where we needed to be. What I've learned from this week is that when we're trying our best to do God's will, then we will see miracles. There will be roadblocks, but even God can use roadblocks to guide us in the right direction. 

Love y'all!

- Elder Christensen