It's up to their Agency

I’m working hard as usual, I’m starting to go a little crazy, it´s been almost a whole transfer without a baptism. But you can’t force anyone to do anything, just got to teach your best and help them feel the spirit. Whether or not the people act on these spiritual impressions is up to their agency. But it is a little discouraging after a while when nobody seems to want the restored gospel truth that brings you so much happiness and purpose.

But that’s just the way things are, not even God makes people accept the truth.

As for my birthday, the only thing i want is the movie "Joseph Smith: the Profet of the Restoration " in Portuguese to show my investigators. It’s that one- hour movie about Joseph Smith

love you all,

-Elder Leete

Just Gotta Have Faith

i love you all, sorry ran out of computer time today my week went by normally, just this area is being a little harder to find interested people. but we´ll find them. just gotta have faith!

 

-Elder Leete

Spiritual Work Work Work

Well this week chugged along as usual, we have been having a hard time in this new area, i think ive never been rejected so much as i am being now, and thus i´m teaching less than usual

but thats okay, it just means that you have to change your tactics. we started visiting all of the members in the ward and teaching a little bit about the doctrine of christ and then asking for references, and in ward counsel on sunday we asked for all the leaders to indicate 5 families for us to work with that are less active or are incomplete.

with this i think we are going to have a lot more success this week, it´s been like three weeks since i´ve had a "BATISMO!" so i´ve got to work a little harder. i know that God has people here in this area that are ready, the "Elect" that just arent baptized yet because they dont know where they can find the truth

i´ve spent a little bit of money in the last month or so. . .  don´t remember how much. as you get older and older on the mission you care less and less about stuff like this.

ive realized that really the mission is more mentally tiring than anything. just the fact that you are constantly concerned about the spiritual well-being of your investigators and the  missionaries in your zone you get tired.

thats why you get P-day! the best thing to do is sleep to unwind. i´m excited about that in a couple of hours. P- day really just is to short, after you study, clean your house and do email and shopping you have like 2 hours to sleep before you are on the street again.

but thats the life of a missionary, just work, work, work, all the time. it’s great that it’s a spiritual work that has real worth and brings satisfaction, if you were living like this just for a normal job to get money it would be a really annoying life

love you all!

-Elder Leete

The Gospel Really does Change Lives

The transfer is going great, me and my comp (Elder S) work well together.  We aren’t really opening up a new area, this is one of the oldest wards in the city so it´s always had missionaries, but the both of the last missionaries to serve here were sent to other areas and me and Elder S arrived here without knowing the area at all. We have both served in Londrina before but not in this part.

We found a family this week that has been taught by the missionaries for over two years but never was baptized. We arrived and taught a lesson where the spirit was so strong you could cut it with a knife. The mom and the son accepted to be baptized this Saturday.  Everything was going really well, we passed there every day to teach and the spirit was always so strong, but when Saturday arrived the dad didn’t want to get baptized, fear of entering into something new and stuff like that. Wants more time to think and prepare (like 2 years isn’t enough). The wife and the son want really badly to be baptized, but they also don’t want to be baptized if the father isn’t baptized too at the same time. A little frustrating for us missionaries, but you have to respect the free agency of your investigators. Your purpose as a missionary is to teach the restored gospel with the spirit, and baptize the people if they want to follow the spirit that they are feeling. Sometimes you just want to grab the people by the collar and throw them in the water because you KNOW that’s what’s best for them, but you just can’t.

Preach my Gospel explains it something like this: you know you are a successful missionary if you can feel the spirit work through you as you find and teach people. Whether or not the accept doesn’t have anything to do with your success.

But one cool thing that happened is that we went to do a baptismal interview in the ward where I served 6 months ago. I took the opportunity to visit a family where I baptized the daughters  but the parents weren’t married at that time so they couldn’t.  They still are active and happy in the church and the marriage papers are almost done, so here in a couple of weeks they can get baptized!!! I probably will still be here which is good because S tells all the missionaries that the only person that will baptize him will be me. They even were going to name their baby "Kevin",  (D is 8 and a half months pregnant) but they found out that it’s going to be a girl. When I talked with them I got to see the great change that happened in their lives in the past six months since me and Elder P baptized them. It is one great testimony that the Gospel really does change lives. It’s amazing to see.

The mission is an experience that I can’t explain; you are changing lives for eternity every single day.

Love you all!

-Elder Leete