First off, we got transfer calls!
Elder Bradshaw and I are staying the same! And elder Webster is coming to
providence! He will be in Prov a, so we will live together, just not
companions. It's going to be a blast. He's actually my zone leader now. And
there is a good chance that I will serve in the same ward/district as him for
the rest of his mission. He's got 3 transfers left.
This week has been a good one. It
started out pretty of sad with the less active member passing away that I
talked about last week. He ended up not having any blood flow to his brain, so
the only thing making his body function was the machine. But the really cool
part of the week was helping his family members, specifically his son, through
it all. We visited the family almost every day and basically taught them the
lessons. The son, Dison, is a champ. Every time we met with him, he had
questions for us and he was always reading his scriptures in between visits.
His goal is to go to the temple for his dad when he can. He's only 16, but he's
determined to be worthy of it when the time comes. We were able to give him and
his mom blessings and it just really strengthened my testimony of the
priesthood. Our Heavenly Father knows exactly what we need in life and through
the priesthood we can communicate that to his children. Dison came to mutual
this week and they also came to church. They came an hour late, but they hadn't
changed their clocks the night before so they came an hour late because of
daylight savings. But the ward was super awesome in being really excited to see
them back and just being his friend. This was our main focus this week. The
best thing about this all is Heavenly Father knows his children perfectly. He knew
that this would be hard on them, but he knew they could handle it and that it
would draw them nearer unto him. Disan has told us that no matter when, he will
come out with us if we ask him to. He really is such a strong kid. I'm blessed
to have the opportunity to help him through this trial.
A big focus I had this week was
saying sincere prayers. After watching the face to face by president eyring and
Elder holland, I started looking at prayer differently. I imagined I was
approaching the literal throne of god. Instead of just rushing into my prayer I
spent time in just silence to quiet my thoughts and prepare to speak with
Heavenly Father. And after my prayers, I set aside time to receive answers
instead of instantly going and doing something else after. I felt a big change
in my prayers. They were no longer similar every time. I still was asking for
similar things in each prayer, but it was more heartfelt rather than repeated.
It also helped change the way elder Bradshaw and I teach prayer to people. Elder
Bradshaw had a great idea of praying with our investigators and then afterwards
just sitting in silence to let the spirit touch their hearts. It was a simple
thing, but I know it has changed the way our investigators see prayer as well.
I just love elder Bradshaw, he's a super humble person and he always has the
investigators needs in mind. It makes the work so much more enjoyable when we
truly put our investigators as our priority 100% of the time.
We had a ward missionary activity
this past Friday and the member turn out was great. We only had two
investigators show up out of the four companionships, but I still think it was
a success. It allowed the members to share their testimonies of the Book of
Mormon and see just how easy it is. Hopefully it helped them to feel more
comfortable to share the gospel with their friends.
Yesterday was ward conference and
the bishop asked us Saturday morning if we would do a special musical number.
So Elder brown and I sang "redeemer of Israel" or "o dios de
Israel" with Elder Bradshaw on cello and hermana Hodgson on the piano. I
thought it's sounded pretty good for having 20 minutes to practice it together.
I got a recording so I'll send that to you. My voice sounds different in it.
I'm not sure how to describe it. But I was singing the tenor part, so the one
that's going higher is me. Elder Bradshaw and I want to do another one in a few
weeks that we have actually practiced.
We weren't really able to meet
with many of our investigators this week. We would set up appointments with
them every day and they would always fall through. So met as much as we could
with them and spent the rest knocking doors. We are probably going to have to
push mark's baptism back because he's been super busy the past couple weeks
with work and the new baby. Pray for him to be able to continue progressing in
this gospel. He's so humble and ready, he just needs the time.
I love you all and know that I'm
praying for you all.
🇺🇸Elder Williams🇲🇽
O dios de Isreael
No comments:
Post a Comment