That was my attempt at an Italian, "Good morning brothers of mine!" or maybe "my brethren!" Well, sisters too.....
Anyways, this week has shown a lot of good things, and a lot more control over my emotions. I think I'll start with the Work and then move along into personal things.
GUESS WHO CAME TO CHURCH! Everyone. That's who. I guess the only one who couldn't make it was Victor Galeano, who seems to have lost his desires to keep up with the Way, but we'll keep trying with him.
But yeah, Walter and his girlfriend, Pamela, were there and bombarded with people and baby gifts. It's kind of obvious that the two are struggling economically, so the Ward basically held a fifteen minute baby shower in between Sacrament Meeting and Sundayschool, which earned the Ward huge brownie points with Pamela. We hope that we can help them to progress spiritually as well as temporally. We had a crazy awesome chance to see Meet the Mormons in President McMullin's house with them (the Church gave him a special copy), but they couldn't come and have been cooped up the whole week because of humidity giving them fear about the baby's health. She really is small and fragile. But! We have a lesson set for tomorrow, so we'll cross our fingers that things work out well for it.
Yoanna came as well, with her brother-in-law Míchel, and the baby. She really loved it too and it's a great start. We had a solid lesson with her last night as well (seeing as we couldn't go see the movie for lack of investigator...).
We're keeping our eyes open and hope to get a second chance to get some people in President's house to see the movie, because it'll be a great tool for people who don't know much about the Church or struggle to see how what we share will really help them forward in life or bring something different from what every other Church brings.
The great personal developments this week stem in great part from a beautiful Zone Conference on Monday, where we learned how to set really good personal and companionship goals and really focus on developing as people. We were told something a little bit difficult, but that I find to be very true: anything, any attribute or personal skill that you can develop in the mission but do not will become immensely harder to develop in life afterwards. I see the truth in it, and so we had good moments of great introspection and I was able to get a better look at myself than in a while. The best part is that I'm different. I'm actually following the plans I've been setting, and while there's a lot more to go, I'm really changing, which brings me great joy.
So, that's why this email is Seguimiento. A month after the New Years, let's follow up (that's what seguimiento means) on what we've set out to be this year. Have we progressed? A month has passed, and much can be accomplished, so lets remember what we set out to be, lets modify those goals as we find troubles. I loved learning in the conference that every time we truly set a goal and truly set out to accomplish it, we should write down why we want it, our reasons and hopes, and memorize them. When we are challenged, we must ask ourselves, why, and when we see that the reasons are still true, we press forward.
I testify of our need to press forward in the Gospel. As a wonderful person I know once wrote me (I'm sorry to be stealing this when you read what I'm writing right here), this life and our progress is like a very long treadmill. That treadmill gets faster as we go on, and the faster we run, the faster it goes. I would add: it'll never get faster than we can outrun. We can always move forward, but every time we step forward, our pace becomes insufficient to take another step forward, and we must grow further and try harder, otherwise, we will fall behind.
The beauty is that we can fall so often and be forgiven. Our scrapes and burns are healed and we are blessed with renewed strength. I hope that everyone can progress, and can improve their progress. My prayers are ever with you.
Love,
Elder Harris
No comments:
Post a Comment