Our zone leaders gave us another lesson on being focused on the work. I think they really feel like our minds or hearts aren't here in Zona Centenario, in Pucallpa Peru. So Elder Peacock asked us what our desires were, setting aside what we were going to eat for lunch. As missioneries, we need to leave behind EVERYTHING to be something else, someone else here, an instrument in the Hands of God. Elder Limon asked us, which is harder, to leave behind your family, your car, your studies, your medical practice, or to wake up at 6:30 en punto. woof. They realy burned us in this meeting, but in a good purifying fire kind of way. Why is it SO hard for us to be obedient, to be diligent, to be humble? Well the answer is, if we are not looking to be obedient, nor diligent, nor humble, we´re not going to find it. Alma 29:4 dice la siguinte, ¨No deberia, en mi deseos, perturbar los firmes decretos de un Dios justo, porque se que el concede a los hombres segun lo que deseen......¨ The Lord gives to us, what we strive for, what we look for. But if we are looking for this or that, looking to sleep in till 7, or looking to only teach the attractive investigadores, or looking to be better than another companionship. We will acheive these things.
I had to ask myself, am I looking for the right things? Am i searching for treasure....or for trash? Because if i´m looking for trash, i´m not going to see the gold thats shining right in front of me!
This week we contacted a woman while she was raking out the tiny stream in front of her house, I stopped to help her while my comp. got her info. I told her jokingly, i wasnt going to stop until i found the treasure i was looking for. We laughed about it because i{m just really funny in spanish now, and because no one was going to find anything valuable in the muck and filth i was raking up. Like it was super nasty. But i was thinking about it later, and it occured to me that even if their had been something good there, no one was looking for it, so they wouldnt hve seen it anyway.
The gospel is like that. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the MOST precious gift from God. More precious and beautiful and sought after than gems, or gold. Tristemente, it´s apparently the most gaurded as well. People dont know what it looks like, sounds like, feels like. It´s a treasure that will REALLY bless people´s lives. so much in fact, that they NEED this gospel, but they arent searching for it, so they really can´t see it when its right in front of them!
Last week we thought it´d be fun to practice lesson 2 and contact in the cementary, so we walk inside, and waiting practically 2 steps behind the gate is a woman watching us. Im excited to run to the back and find people crying at the gravestones and preach eternal life....but my compnion walked over to this woman instead, with her two sons playing behind her. We started talking to her, i introduced ourselves as representatives of Jesus Christ and began telling her that we were sent to help her. She told us her husband died last month, his heart had just stopped working. He was a great, intelligent man, and she was still in shock. We set up a time to come teach her.
What happened is that houses here are impossible to find. But since this is an experience about finding treasures....
AFter a week of not being able to track her or her house down, finally one night she called us! My compnion was dead asleep, and i went to set our phone´s alarm to get up for church, I saw we missed a call from an unknown number. I called and i asked who it was, Nany! soy nany! OH! nany, wow, how are you? We wanted to invite you to church tomorrow. how are you doing? She told me she was not doing well. The following 10 minutes she was sobbing on the phone, she was sharing her testimony of her belief in God, but that she feels he abandoned her and took her life away from her. She told me she didnt want to lie, that she was drunk. She put her two sons on the phone, Rex (6 years) asked me if i was the hermanita from the cementary, si, i said. Ayuda mi mama, ayuda mi mama. ella esta mal, esta triste. This same boy hasnt eaten in weeks, he doesnt want to, he misses his dad. Nany put her other son on the phone to talk to me, he asked me to help his mom, and asked when we were coming. I asked him for his direction again, they told me they´re house was like gold, a yelllow one story house. I promised we´d come and take them to church.
After i hung up, i realize I had promised i´d find their home, after a week on NOT finding it. and that we´d find if before the church service at 9:00 am........I fell to my knees asking my HEavenly Father to keep NAny and her sons safe while she was drunk at home. I prayed that He would help me find this house of gold, and that i could keep my promise and help this family.
I have a testimony that the Lord gives to us what we ask for. The difference between looking for this woman´s house Sunday morning, compared to the rest of the week, is that I had the Lord´s help Sunday morning, and because I knew what i was looking for. We found them. Nany has lost her faith, her husband, and she didnt know how to find it, or what any of this looked or felt like. We are teaching her how to find her faith again, that she will see and hold her husband again.
Her story is a story of searching for treasure. I found her house of Gold, a real treasure and answer to my prayers, and she is finding her eternal family.
I know the Lord loves me, and loves this family. Even though we experience losses, the Lord still loves us. He has treasure, hidden in this life, that we need to only search for, and it will be revealed to us. But if we are not searching for it, we will not find it, we will not be able to see that it´s shining right in front of us.
I have learned to pray that those who dont know what they´re looking for will realize what this treaure is, and then i pray that we can be worthy to bring thise treasure to them.
I am not Jessica Talbert, runner, reader and what not student. I am a missionary, I am doing the Lord´s work. Jessica could not have found this house, nor found this woman in the cementary, just watching us. But Hermana Talbert, she can. I am trying every day to be someone different here, someone better. I know that the Lord will help me to help Him realize His work, and bring His treasure to those who are in need of it and searching.
Pray for me to be receptive to His spirit, to find these people.
Pray for those who are sick, who are suffering, who don´t know what this Gospel is like, that they may find it.
I know these things are true and I will never forget them.
Take care family and friends! I love you so much!!! Be kind
Hermana Talbert
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