March 31, 2014

FAMILIA! 

Wow! We had another great, but a really difficult week.

Well remember that girl Diana we were working with? Well she got baptized! But it was a last minute thing, we put it all together the night before and it was really stressful. The whole week she was having struggles with her mom who kept saying ‘no’ and did not want to talk to us, and her dad had left one night and had not come back for three days. She was really stressed and thought it would be better not to go through with her baptism. So we went to her house and I asked her the baptism questions and she answered perfect to every single one. Then we read the last paragraph of the introduction to the Book of Mormon and she was so pumped. Then I told her that she could pray and ask for the heart of her mom to be changed and for her dad to come back and that if she did it with faith, that everything would happen like she asked. In her prayer she said "Thank you Heavenly Father that you have restored your gospel through your prophet Joseph Smith, and Thank you for the missionaries who are teaching me and for your scriptures. Then she asked for help with her mom and her dad. Well this all happened on Thursday and then Friday she came to an activity and she told us that her dad had gotten back that very night after having been gone for days without contact, and that her mom changed her heart. We were awe shocked and amazed at the miracles that our Heavenly Father does to help us see his will. Needless to say, she was baptized Saturday and confirmed on Sunday. She has an amazing and powerful testimony and such faith when she prays.

Well other than that, we have been working a ton with the brother and cousin of Aranza, our last baptism. They are two kids of about 14 or 15 years and they are great kids. We are trying to help them and their mom, Patricia, realizes how important and how helpful the gospel of Christ is and why baptism is important, but it has been a little hard. So I would love it if you could keep them in your prayers this week. They have a baptism date for the last week of the transfer the 13th of April (my comps bday). So we are hoping to have a good ending to the transfer and our companionship, with at least two more baptisms, but we will have to patiently work hard and see.

Well now for something amazing. Last night my companion had a nightmare. Now my comp is 21, a big Mexican from ciudad Juarez (the city of Juarez) right on the border with all the drug dealers, but he is one of the biggest scaredy cats in the night. He has nightmares and he will get up and turn on the light in the bathroom so there is light in the bedroom. It bugs me a little, but I know it helps him, but last night he had a NIGHTMARE! He woke up, turned on the bathroom light, but that did not get his fear to go away, so he turned on the bedroom light but that didn’t get the fear to go away or  wake me up, but eventually I woke up at about two in the morning and said "what happened"?  He told me he had a nightmare and that he was still scared, so I went back to bed; well I tried at least, but two minutes later I got up thinking about all the times that mom and dad woke up for me, so I talked to him ( but definitely did not let him get into my bed- like mom and dad let me- just saying) and after he told me what happened I realized that this was an attack from Satan and that it had been a lot more than just a nightmare. So I got up and got dressed and gave him a blessing. When I was giving him a blessing, I remembered a part from Moses and Genesis when God says that “Satan will have power to bruise our heel but we will have power to crush his head”, so I told him that in his blessing and I thought about it a ton. Satan already lost but he will do anything, and I mean anything, to make us lose but we have more power than he does. We will always have more power than he does, if we do what is right, if we are with good friends, if we go to church, if we read our scriptures, if we are worthy of the covenants we made with God we will always have more power.

Well Thanks to the priesthood power my comp was able to have peace in his heart and mind and the fear left him, but with the light still on of course, and within three minutes he was snoring and I was stuck wide a wake in my bed, but oh well.

Well, love you all. Have a great week and I will keep you all in my prayers.

Elder Monsivais