Week 32 - The week where we get surprised... A LOT

This week was pretty solid with a lot of miracles honestly! So many people we are teaching have surprised us with some random spurts of progress we did not see coming.

First of all D.L. that was drinking a lot - we showed up to have a charla with him on Tuesday and he told us no. He said he was fighting with his ex-wife, he was drinking a lot, and he had zero desires to talk at that moment and that he would never drop alcohol. All we did was setup another charla for Thursday. We show up on Thursday and this man had shaved his super long beard and mustache, had not drunk alcohol in 24 hours and was super ready to listen to us. We later went back on Saturday and he completed 48 hours without drinking and then he just had a tiny bit in the morning to calm his nerves. He is more willing than ever to stop drinking and to get baptized it is super great.

S. is progressing well. He doesn't read the Book of Mormon as much as we would like but he does read and he does like it, he just loves his Bible so much though so that's kind of difficult. I know if he read the Book of Mormon more he would progress so much faster because it really is the key to everything we do as missionaries. Nonetheless, he's moving along fine.

We had a charla with C. also and she was super cool. She has already read until Jacob chapter 4 in the Book of Mormon and she prayed about Joseph Smith and said she feels like she received her answer. She has a few commandment obstacles to getting baptized, but luckily we have that really firm place to start with her so we might actually be able to overcome them.

We had a charla with G. last week and he didn't seem super interested, but we came back the next week and he said he was practicing his prayers a lot and he really likes it and then invited one of his friends to our next charla with him! (M.) It always feels super nice when you get references from non members.

Finally we had a charla with J. yesterday. He`s a new person we are teaching recently. He`s married which is awesome, and he has 5 kids! We didn't get to meet them yet, but we gave him a baptismal date in our first charla and he accepted, he seems super capo and we are really excited. 

That was pretty much our activities of the week. It is super incredible how the Lord prepares people for us and guides us to them with the help of the Spirit. 

Alma 16:16

16 Y no habia desigualdad entre ellos; y el Senor derramo su Espiritu sobre toda la faz de la tierra a fin de preparar la mente de los hijos de los hombres, o sea, preparar sus corazones para recibir la palabra que se ensenara entre ellos en el di­a de su venida,

And there was no inequality among them; the Lord did pour out his Spirit on all the face of the land to prepare the minds of the children of men, or to prepare their hearts to receive the word which should be taught among them at the time of his coming—

I know that this is 100% true. That the same Spirit that guides us in our work is the Spirit that prepares the people to receive us. That is why it is so key to work with the Spirit as a third companion, he knows who he has prepared, we just have to be willing to go where he tells us. I know that the Spirit can guide us in all things.

Nos vemos!

-Elder Martin

Emailing at the internet cafe 

View of part of the city where Bryant is - 

that bridge goes out to an island in the river.

More of his city