Monday, May 10, 2010

April 26, 2010 Prayer lesson on the porch! Wonderful Leonel!

Hey Family!

So we didn`t move penches this week but it is in the works. We should move in the middle of this week. It should be pretty fun! I feel like this pench thing has been going on for quite a while now, but it`s been good, we`re ready to move.

It`s so good to have another chance to write you this week. This week has been quite the amazing week. I know that I say this every week, but I am learning a ton. There are so many experiences that happen every day that if we are open to what there is to learn, the Lord can teach us so much! We learn by experience here in this earth, it`s something that the Lord wants for us. Oftentimes it is painful, but the point is not to wallow (oh that was a good word) in the pain, but to take the experience cheerfully, with faith, looking towards the future, and apply what you learned to future experiences. Anyway, I guess that`s my little sermon to start out, but anyway I had a good week! We had the baptism of Mercedez fall through, but she wants to get baptized this upcoming week. She`ll be ready. Satan sure is doing his best to knock her out though. We`ll need to focus big time on her this week and help her progress towards baptism.

We`ve kind of been in the hunt for new people this week. We found a wonderful lady that let us teach her on her front porch on Saturday morning. When Elder Wilson was teaching her how to pray she was so receptive, just like a little kid. When Elder Wilson said, “We fold our arms when we pray and close our children…I mean eyes (hijos means children, ojos means eyes…I made the same mistake in the MTC, it gave me a good laughJ)” Anyway, when he said that, Estel, this older lady we were teaching, did the exact same. She folded her arms so tightly and closed her eyes so tightly. We hadn`t even finished explaining how to pray and she was already ready to pray. It was a good example to me of humbly following the instructions we are given. We will have to come back later in the week when her husband is not there in order to see how she is doing. She said her husband really would get mad if we were there when he was there. We`ll have to see if we can talk to her and see what happens. We gave her a Restoration pamphlet and told her to have her husband read it and that we would see miracles here. Maybe her husband`s heart will soften and be more receptive to the Holy Ghost. We`ll see what happens this week.

I have learned this week that to be a perfect missionary is impossible. I get discouraged sometimes because I can`t do everything right because I am a human being, but I know that Christ is there to forgive me and erase my sins if I trust in him. I need to be patient with myself and just do my best, always following the promptings of the Holy Ghost and being obedient to the commandments of God. We just have to do our absolute best and the Lord will make up for the rest. The Lord is happy with any effort that we make to become better and be more like Him. The blessings will come with time.

Ok, so this e-mail has been full of lots of my thoughts from this week, but I figure it will help someone. Things are going well here. I am having fun and I love being a missionary. J People yell at us, people reject us, but it`s all part of the fun! We had an experience last night that really helped me to realize that the Lord has immense blessings prepared for us if we are prepared to receive them. We were opening the mouth (talking to people in the street) and we were just about to end for the night but I felt that we needed one Open the Mouth more. So we started to talk to a young man headed the opposite direction and he was probably one of the most level headed, wonderful young men I have met here in Argentina. His name is Leonel and he doesn`t live in our area, but he was so receptive and had tons of questions. We gave him a Book of Mormon and he is genuinely interested and has many questions. He said that he has seen this missionaries a ton but this is the first time that someone has stopped and talked to him. Anyway, we`ll see what happens, but I would love to see what happens to this kid in the future. He`s incredible! I know the Lord blesses us and blesses others when we do what is right. I hope everyone has such an incredible week! Chau!!

Love,
Elder Hoglund

0 comments: