Week 60 - The week of "Joy and Spiritual Survival"

August 22, 2019

Week 60 - The week of "Joy and Spiritual Survival"

I'm super grateful for inspired leaders that give us the counsel we need just when we need it.

This week has been absolutely the opposite of what we had planned.

We were able to give a baptismal date to a woman we're teaching named S. She accepted a baptismal date for the 7th of September.

We were also able to find a good amount of new people to teach this week!

Other than that we just got hit from every angle, surprise after surprise.

We found out on Tuesday that N. and J. decided to not get baptized because her husband is fighting her on it and so to avoid the argument she didn't get baptized as we had planned. It was super sad because she told us that she still wanted it, that she really had the desires to be baptized, but that she wanted to try and talk her husband into being ok with it first. It was really difficult for us.

The rest of the week, almost all of our charlas fell through all day every day. We were just walking and contacting in every moment trying to refill our teaching pool a little bit, but even then we got rejected more than normal, or people just straight up wouldn't come out of their house so we didn't find as many people as the time we had would have suggested that we could find.

On Saturday, we had a baptismal interview planned for M. T. We had a charla with her on Friday and she said she would be in the chapel at 11 to do a video call with the Zone Leaders for the interview. She didn't show up. We eventually called her and she told us that she had had a dream that her Grandma came to her and told her to not leave the Catholic Church so now she doesn't want to be baptized.

Finally, on Sunday, nobody that we are teaching came to church. N. and J. said that they were still going to go even though they couldn't be baptized, but they had something to do in the morning. L. was out of town with his family.

Then this afternoon when I read my email from President Dunford, he shared a talk with us by President Nelson called "Joy and Spiritual Survival." He shared a few points immediately with us about how our life's situations don't affect our joy, only what we focus our life on affects our joy. After this week that we had, I can definitely testify of the truth of that. Even though it was super hard, I know that God has a plan for each and every one of his children and that he'll never abandon anyone that puts their trust in Him. Despite the difficulty of this last week, I still find joy in my calling to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ even when others don't accept it. I know that the church is true, that the Book of Mormon is the word of God, and that Joseph Smith was divinely appointed to restore the Church of Jesus Christ in these days.

Final news, I got changed to the zone of Colonia still as a District Leader. My companion will be Elder Niela from Brazil. He is 26 years old!! I'm super excited about this change of scenery and to be able to apply what I've learned in this past year or so in this coming area.

I love you all! Nos vemos!

Elder Martin