Now the highlight of this week is that Juan and Lesley have a baptismal date! :D If they feel the truth of the Restoration and the Book of Mormon by the 26th of May, they will be baptized on that day ^-^ Which is very exciting! However, they did not come to church or to see any baptisms this week. That is where they need help. We'll be praying for and working with them :) Members are a huge help with getting investigators to church. (Offer to help the missionaries in your ward with that. They will love you!)
We had an interesting Saturday this week. We spent the morning using five gallon buckets to clean out 9 months worth of residue that had gathered in a member's swimming pool. The best description of said water would be a mix of sewage and pond water. One of the buckets had some holes in it, so that was just the cherry on top ^-^ Haha it was fun though! I enjoyed myself at least! We then spent the whole rest of the day moving apartments with the help of two other missionaries. It was quite the process. Poor Elder Myers got fried by the sun! Part of his neck hadn't seen the sun for years, because he was always wearing a collar, so it got charred pretty badly ^-^
After Elder Myers and I taught the Restoration at a recent baptism in the ward, a man walked up to me and asked me in Spanish, "Are you from Brazil." A bit surprised, I responded, "No, I'm from Utah." He said, "Oh. You sound like a Brazilian for some reason." I took that as a sign that my Spanish is coming along well! Haha :)
You know, The Spirit is an interesting thing. I had an experience yesterday with following the Spirit where I felt prompted to head up to a family at the top of the area. That is quite the time commitment when you are on bikes. But we went. They weren't there. Nor could we figure out any other reason that the Lord would send us there. However all the way back to the apartment and throughout the night, I felt the peace of the Spirit testifying to me that we had made the right decision. How is that?
I have been pondering that question, and came to this conclusion: sometimes the Spirit guides us to do something, knowing it won't work, simply to:
1. Test our faith. Will we follow the spirit the next time, no matter the result?
2. Teach us lessons we wouldn't have learned in any other way. For example, I learned how to approach failure with optimism in that moment.
3. One of my favorite quotes of all time: "Doing God's will without thought to the end result or consequence: that is what serving a mission is." Who are we to say what the results should be? If we are truly instruments in God's hands, we don't need to worry about the outcome. We simply do what He asks and give thanks that He is using us to do His will, even if we aren't sure of the WHY behind it.
That doesn't just apply to missionaries. The spirit whispers to each of you every day. I promise it does. Will you have the courage to follow what it says, the perseverance to follow its guidance day after day? Who do we "fear" more: man, or God? I feel these are good questions to ask ourselves. Soul-searching questions can cause us to recognize the need for a change inside of us. Then we can repent and make that change, and progress.
Let us all press on! Love you all :) Have a wonderful week!
Elder Poulson
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