29 July 2013

Hello Family and Friends, 

This week was really rewarding, because after 4 weeks of hard work we are now starting to see the blessings.

This week Elder Machado and I sat down to review our past week and then set up our new goals for the week. We were still a little shaken by the fact that after so much effort no one showed up to church. 4 weeks without anyone in the chapel. So we prayed and started planning for this week as usual. We planned everything and then started putting down what numbers we thought that we could achieve. We arrived at the portion of our agenda that says, "Investigators that attended sacrament meeting." We thought deeply and both agreed on the number 2, two persons at church Sunday. This number was much more humble than what we are used to, 7 or 8, but seeing our results from the past week it seemed possible.

Later in the week, we had to travel to Pelotas to attend a training meeting with President Castro and the other zones. There we had some very valuable training meetings, but the one that caught my attention was given by Sister Castro the spouse of Pres. Castro. She spoke about humility, and I learnt a lot about being humble from her. She mentioned that we depend on God and that we must always subject ourselves to his will. Also, she noted that in order to demonstrate our humility we need to obey all of the commandments and rules of the mission with exactness, and we always serve arduous and are grateful for every blessing that is given to us, be it big or small. It finish her training she gave us the scripture D&C 112:10, "Be thou humble; and the Lord thy God shall lead thee by the hand, and give thee answer to thy prayers." This scripture caught my attention and I pondered about it the rest of the day.

 

 

We arrived back in Dom Pedrito late Thursday night and Elder Machado and I conversed about what we had learned from the conference with Pres. Castro. In short, we made a pact to obey every little rule with exactness, for example, wake up and get out of bed 6:30 on point, no more wake up and take our time to get up and moving. It means exercising everyday, and be studying at 8:00 o clock no ifs or buts.

It means being out of the house by 10:30 and doing our 20 contacts for the day. It means being back at home 9:30 at night and always doing our daily planning for the next day. So this is what we did with exactness. In summary we worked as hard as we could, we were as obedient as was possible, and we did everything in our reach to achieve our goals this week, with goal of 2 persons at church in the back of our minds. We were confident that if we were humble, the Lord would lead us by the hand and would answer our prayer, and he did.

This week we were always in the right place at the right time. We talked with the right people everyday that are interested in the church. Really we were guided by the Lord, it was incredible. So finally we were at church and the first meeting had already passed by, (Priesthood Meeting) and no one had shown up to church. I still had a great hope that one of our investigators would come to church and I remembered that Adriana, an investigator, said that maybe she would be a little late to church, if she decided to go. I went outside the chapel and waited about 10 min anxiously. Then suddenly I saw her car coming down the street in our direction. Her car was gleaming with light from the morning sun. She parked and got out of the car and entered into the chapel with us. I could not stop smiling the whole time as much as I tried to wipe the smile off my face. She participated in the Gospel Principles class which was great. Then when we left the classroom I looked down the hall and to my amazement Glessimar, another investigator,  was conversing with some members waiting for sacrament meeting. My joy doubled in size and I quickly went to greet her. And there it was our 2 investigators that we had planned at the beginning of the week. God had answered our prayers. We had been led by his hand the entire week and it was because of our obedience and humility that put forth the entire week.

It is difficult to write this letter because I am almost breaking out into tears from the joy that we felt yesterday. I am so grateful for the answer to our prayers, the reward for our hard work these past 5 weeks. Simply, I know that our Lord lives. I know he answers our prayers. I know that sometimes blessings do not come when we want them to, but they always come to those who humble themselves and subject themselves to His will. I am so grateful for every little thing in my life, I am grateful to serve others.

Thanks you for all your prayers and support I love you all, Elder Miller