P-Day update week 51, 02/06/2023
¡Hola a todos!!
Well it's been a great week! Not a whole lot of crazy new things have been going on, just the normal stuff we've been doing the past three weeks, working hard to find people and trying to teach as many people as we can! But we did have some pretty cool experiences this week to share!
Well we've been continuing to visit Dalila pretty consistently, especially since we have her on date to be baptized. We really need to focus on her and make sure that she is ready for when her baptism comes along! This week we stopped by and brought a member along with us as we taught The Plan of Salvation, it was such an amazing lesson! We know that Dalila's husband is working in the United States so she has been really preoccupied with that and trying to take care of her son! So as we talked about how the families could be eternal the spirit really entered the room and we were all able to feel it! I love teaching this lesson, it is always a spiritual experience explaining heavenly father's great plan for us all! After the lesson we set a day to go back and have a family home evening with that same member that we brought! We started off by showing a video of the Book of Mormon, this video that we showed talks about 3 Nephi 17, and is so wonderful! I've probably seen the video like 10 times back to back because of how wonderful it is! After the video we discussed a bit what they learned, and talked a lot about how Christ can really heal all those that come unto him! After that we spent the rest of the family home evening playing go fish! The member that we brought is a sister that is about 80 years old, but is a good friend of this family! And during the entire game she kept asking "Can someone please give me their jack?" It was so funny because it wasn't ever her turn when she asked, and she just kinda asked the entire room, but after some practice sister Esther really turned up the heat and started getting some cards!! It was nice to spend some time with Dalila and her family in a more friendly way, and really just grow our connection with them!
Jorge's baptism!!
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This week we also received new council from President Day! So for a little background, every week on Sunday night we have a two hour weekly planning session where we plan how we're going to help our people in teaching progress and come closer to Christ! In this planning session we also set goals as a companionship, we set personal goals, we set up everything that we need to do and plan how we are going to do it! It's a really valuable time and something that's really important for us to be able to do some effective work! But this week we had a devotional on zoom with the whole mission where President Day told us that we would be changing a little bit how we do our weekly planning! He gave us two new things to do when it comes to our weekly planning. The first thing is that we would be changing our planning day from Sunday night to Thursday morning! And second he wants us to focus on setting goals and actually reaching them! A lot of times a missionary can fall into the habit that they just set arbitrary goals and that they don't really need to reach them. But President wants us to set reasonable goals and actually strive to meet them! I feel like that has kinda been a given with setting goals in the mission but it's nice to hear that President is still focusing on our progress and constantly working to help us get better!
Like I mentioned in the beginning, this week has been a lot like the other weeks that we've had, we haven't slowed down in our drive to work and find people, in fact this week we have been working even harder! We're already halfway through the transfer and I feel like we're running out of time to do all the things we need to do! So my companion and I have just been hitting the ground stone and trying to be the most effective and diligent that we can! We actually have found quite a few people this week that we see a lot of potential with! Especially an inactive family that has been going to our sports activities, we went to their house the other day and found out that they had a daughter that isn't a member but wants to be baptized! The Lord has really just been working with us! I'm so glad to be doing what I'm doing here!!
One of the biggest examples of the Lords hand here is the baptism we had yesterday! I'm sure we've talked about this friend before but I can't remember what we called him, so we will call him George! But when we came in, George was the man! He has been so prepared since the day we got here! And yesterday we finally had his baptism! So let me explain how the day went, on Sunday morning we left the house at 5:00am to go fill up the baptismal font, which was not what we wanted to do but work calls haha! So we filled up the font after fighting to close the drain for about a half an hour, and then we went home and slept for another hour to catch up! And once the actual hour of the baptism came up we had everything ready with the programs and the font all filled up! And George came in with 15 people!! He brought all his family and friends! The service itself was awesome, the spirit was so strong and just seeing all of Jorge's family and friends there with him just made it such a special experience! And while Jorge was changing we took the opportunity to teach a quick lesson to all that were there, it was really coo, it brought me back to my Zacapoaxtla sermon days! After the service all of his guests stayed for the sacrament meeting, where I had the opportunity to confirm Jorge a member of the church! It was just such a special day, in so excited to see where Jorge goes form here with this new connection with the spirit!
Honestly that's about it! This week has been relatively mundane besides the baptism, we plan to keep up our momentum and continue to help as many people as we can find peace in the Lord Jesus Christ!! My spiritual thought this week is more than anything a Christ like attribute! I think almost everyone can receive blessings for being more diligent! I have found that time and time again in my mission and in my everyday life when I try hard to be diligent in all I do, I begin to see more blessings! We can apply diligence to many aspects of our lives, in fact we all juggle so many things in our hands, work, school, God, family, social life, etc. But as I'm sure you've all seen with those circus guys that balance the spinning plates on the sticks, sometimes we can lose our balance or let one of our plates spin slower than the other! But if we focus on just two or three plates, and give all we have so that they spin well, we will be happy! We often want more that we need as human beings, and it's fine to be ambitious, but the key to everything is not only striving for more, but being diligent in keeping what you have! I can't express how important it is to be diligent, in school, work, family, and religion. When one puts all they can into these categories, God will bless us with more opportunities un life! Just like it says in Matthew 25: 23:
"...Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord."
I invite you all to be faithful in the little things that God has entrusted you with, and he will entrust you with more, and will open up the doors to his kingdom!!
I love you all and I'm so grateful you are all in my life! Have a great week and I'll see you soon!
-Elder Garnica
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