November 21, 2016

Sigua la Guia del Espiritu (week 10)

Dear friends and family,

Thanks for all of your support and prayers! Every ounce of faith matters! I love you!

I studied charity this week. The section we usually read about charity is in Moroni 7, and it describes charity a lot, but how do we develop it? First, we must pray with all the energy of heart to have it. God bestows spiritual gifts such as charity upon those who earnest seek it. Second, we must serve. I think the verb form of charity is sometimes love and usually service. I'm pretty sure that sentence is going to make no sense to the reader, but I'm trying to say that if you want charity, go out and serve. If you need charity for one person, serve them. Smile at them, speak highly of them, do all you can to make their lives better. Just see how long it takes before you feel the pure love of Christ for them. 

On the way over to the library, Hermana Whittingham asked me if I had any stories to tell this week. It seems we have nothing thrilling, but a week full of little miracles nonetheless. During planning, we chose where to knock with the Spirit, and he really confused us at the time, but just watch:

We chose a mobile home park that's very unfriendly to missionaries, and we blew through about 10 houses in less than a half hour. I mentioned to my companion that we might knock the whole park and have time left over. The next house was a less-active who was delighted to finally be visited by someone from the church. She isn't on the branch records, so no one has visited her since she moved here, but she reads her scriptures every day, and when she found out church is only 6 minutes from her house, she said she'd come. God works in mysterious ways...

For yesterday we chose a very white neighborhood, but we found and inspired a member family who referred us to the Spanish speaking families in the neighborhood. We shared a thought with them and inspired them, and we were back on track to reach our member inspire goal, which we thought we weren't going to meet.  The Spirit was really strong there, so I think that's what God wanted us to be doing.

Pedro is really excited to be baptized on the 3rd! We took him to a baptism on Saturday down in the valley, and it was very exciting for everyone. I'm excited for the day when I one day get to serve down there, but just now, I really love the Santa Clarita 2a branch and I hope I get to stay for another transfer. 

Love you lots! Thank you again for all of your love and support!