Argentina: Week 5

So when I got on my email today I had some emails and as I read them I am impressed to tell everyone that they need to stop. Stop for one second thinking about all the things that arent working out, all the things that are expected and needed from you, and instead think about the goodness of God. How much you love your family and especially how much they love you. It is so easy to be overwhelmed by expectations and by the things of the world, but something I have been blessed with is to have the time to serve the Lord and remember what really is important. I also have been blessed to be able to share with everyone what I learned! I´m pretty excited about it too because I have never received so much revelation while reading 1 Nephi, but it is awesome and Nephi is so faithful! This morning I was reading 1 Nephi 16 and 17 which is pretty much all about faith, pride, and doing the will of the Lord. One of the things that I loved especially was about complaining against Heavenly Father because the wording in verse 22 says "because they had hardened their hearts again, even unto complaining against the Lord their God". When I ready that I realized the wording was telling us how horrible it is to complain against God. When we complain about the things that arent happening we are being so prideful in the fact that we think we shouldnt have trials or that we deserve more than the Lord has already blessed us with. Pride is the original sin and all of us are in grave danger of that sin. If you have pride, you lack humility, if you lack humility you think you can do things on your own to which leads the thought that God doesnt do much = lack of FAITH. When we have pride, we lack faith. I know that everything is coming at you from every side, but I have been able to see in many people´s lives that it only gets hard when you stop putting spiritual things first. Make time for scripture study and prayer. Even if it is the shortest prayer and one verse of scripture, make time! It will bless your life and the harmony in your home.

This past week has been amazing. What has been so special is that we have had many many lessons directed by the spirit that were amazingly powerful. Eventhough my spanish was failing me, I was able to help them understand that these things are from God. It was a humbling experience because I realized I hadnt been thanking Heavenly Father for helping me speak and understand spanish. I was relying on my own strength, but He can still use me in my weakness. He can especially use me in my weakness. Dont get me wrong, there were really hard parts of this week that I will not talk about, but we have to have bad times and trials in order to have the good times and feel the ultimate joy of the gospel. Anyway, these are many of the things that I have learned this week. Now moving on to investigators!

WE HAD AN INVESTIGATOR AT CHURCH!! If all of our investigators and less actives that had awesome spiritual lessons came to church, then we would have had a total of eight, but we atleast had one family and it was awesome!!!! This family has a pretty sad story at the moment but we are hoping to change that and they took the first step by coming to church! The guy is the son of the Relief Society President and Ward Mission Leader. He has been through some crap that I dont know all about and is living at home with his parents and his own little family. He isnt married yet, but has a three year old with her. She loves the church and has been an investigator for almost a year. She cant get baptized until they get married, but she still hadnt been to church. (THAT ALL CHANGED YESTERDAY WOO) We had a lesson with them on Saturday that was really really harsh but the spirit was SUPER strong and they knew that it was pretty much "we cant teach you anymore because you arent going anywhere if you dont start coming to church." AND THEY CAME!!!! AHHH so excited. I was the one who taught gospel principles and it was about tithing. That was also super strong and awesome. I´m pretty excited about it. Mabel however didnt come to church, BUT we are teaching her whole family tomorrow night and we will see how that goes. I found out that she is a twin and a gold mine for new investigators. While we were teaching the plan of Salvation, 6 different people heard atleast part of the lesson. Three of them are adults that all are from the same Evangelico group but NO ME IMPORTA!!!!

Last thing that I want to share is something else that I found in my journal that I learned this past week. This is my journal entry:

"As I was thinking about the concept of God loving me even though I´m nothing I compared it to a book, which seems to help me clearly see how this is possible. Books in reality are nothing more than a compilation of words. Some books are long, some short, but in reality they are nothing. They could have very little significance if someone didnt know how to read, but the thing is, we still all have favorite books. Books we love because they have impactedus in profound ways. Heavenly Father sees that we are nothing in reality, but we are special books to Him, who can impact peoples lives. Our books are written experiences of one heartbreak or another and the moments of joy we experience. These experiences have the power to influence other people and change their lives for better or even for worse. Heavenly Father sees this potential of what kind of book we could be and as long as we allow Him to be the author, we can be used for immense good."

Hermana Allen