10/12 We've had a fairly good week this week. We had the goal to get 12 lessons with a member present at the beginning of the week. By the end of Saturday, we had only taught 6. The miracle this week is that we achieved our goal! After church, we had a member, Jose, come up to is and ask us if we had any visits in the afternoon. We told him we had one set at 4:30, and he told us he would come along. Turns out, that visit fell through, and Jose decided to stay with us anyway. We went to our next visit and had a great lesson on the restoration with Oliver and his family, then afterwards I felt like we needed to go to a park and visit with a man named Samuel. We got there when he told us he would be there, but he wasn't there and didn't answer his phone. I figured that while we were there, we may as well pass by an investigator we have that owns a shop nearby. On the way over, we saw another investigator in the street and we stopped and taught him a short lesson leaving him with a prayer. We then passed by the shop and actually ended up meeting the husband, whom I have never seen nor taught. He has been reading the Book of Mormon and finds it really interesting. We had a good lesson with them. Then as we were walking in the street, I got a call from a member telling us that she had set up a visit with an investigator at her house. We went to that visit, taught the plan of salvation, and set a baptismal date with Sabina for the 7 of November. By the end of the day, we had taught a total of 7 lessons with a member present, and it was all thanks to Jose who was more than willing to walk all over the place and accompany us the whole afternoon. God prepared everything perfectly so that we could visit all those people! If those few people had not fallen through, we would not have had the opportunities we had to visit all of the others.
We still haven't heard anything from our investigator Souri. I am a little worried that she has found some doubts and is too afraid to talk to us about them so she is distancing herself from us. I'm not sure what to do to help her. We may let her rest for a little bit. The investigator who is progressing the most right now is Mohamed. We had a wonderful lesson on the Book of Mormon just the other day, and we have set up regular visits to teach him Spanish along with the gospel. His progression may be a little slow due to a small language barrier (he speaks English, but it's not his first language...) but I see a great future with him. Cristina, the mother of Jose, is also progressing little by little. We have had two really spiritual lessons with her now, and I think she may finally be ready for a fecha! I guess we'll see in our next visit.
Elder Peay and I are doing very well. I have seen a huge improvement in his Spanish. He is not quite as lost in lessons now, and he can and does participate a lot more than before. He is coming up with really good ideas for planning, and he is getting to know the large investigator pool we have very quickly.
One thing I studied this week is the Plan of Salvation. I learned that the doctrine of the Plan of Salvation is literally our road map of eternity. Before that knowledge was revealed, we could only think of things from our imperfect, mortal point of view. But now, thanks to scripture and modern revelation, we don't have to ask ourselves where did I come from, why am I here, and where will I go when I die. We know that we did exist before we were born. We did truly know God because we lived with Him as His spirit children. We know that this life does have a purpose, and that purpose is to obtain a physical body at birth and learn to control it through experiences here on Earth. We know that the trials and challenges in this life are for our good and learning. Although we all make mistakes, God sent His son to pay for all of the sins and mistakes we could ever make. Christ's atonement makes it possible for us to correct our mistakes and erase our sins, but there is one condition. We must truly repent of our sins and accept and live the gospel of Christ. We know that if we do this, we will have the opportunity to stand before God at the judgment seat with a clean conscience, knowing that we have accepted our Lord and Savior and have been "made white" by His blood. I know that we can all return to live with our Heavenly Father again in the celestial kingdom of glory. I know where we came from. I know why we are here. I know where we will go after this life.
P.S. My favorite scripture of the week: Enos 1: 26-27
A visit to Vitoria for preparation day
Lemon dessert he made himself ...Yum!!
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