Dear Family and Friends,
It has been one crazy week! It's been a good crazy though. I have learned so much about conversion. It has come everyday this week in my personal study and we teach atleast one person a day about it. I guess God knows our area needs to become more converted so he helping me to learn that too so I can teach from personal experience. I want to invite you all to read the talk by Elder Dallin H. Oaks called "The Challenge to Become." It is an amazing talk that helped me understand more about conversion and the gospel. https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2000/10/the-challenge-to-become?lang=eng
So Bernard got baptized on Saturday. I wasn't sure if that day would ever come; I thought he might turn into an eternal investigator. This past week everytime I thought Bernard and his baptism I always said to myself, "This is not my baptism, or convert. This is Jesus Christ's baptism. I did nothing, but be an instrument in his hands." I wouldn't take the credit for Bernard's decsion. When people would tell me congradulations I always wanted to say, and sometimes did say, "It wasn't me, It was the Savior Jesus Christ." Earlier in my mission when I helped another child of god make the decision to be baptized, I gave all the credit to myself. She was my convert. But now I understand that I'm just an instrument, and it is not my right to take the credit. I know without the Savior on my side, I would not be able to do the work I'm doing. It is his work and will be done in his own way. I have to be willing to follow his plan, and let go of myself. That is something I have been working on doing, I'm not perfect at it, but I'm getting better everyday. All my wants and wishes may or may not happen, it is whatever the Lord has in store for me. With his guidance I can reach my full potential. I will always rely on him and give him gratitude for all that I have. Without God, I'm nothing. Without the spirit I would just be someone from Utah living in Canada for 18 months trying to share what I believe. With the spirit and my willingness to follow the will of the Lord I am becoming an insturment he can use to harvest his field that is white.
Now we have no investigators and have been working really hard to try and find new ones. We have been trying to also work with more less-actives, but it is really hard to get in with many of them and others we are finding have moved. We did get to have some really good lessons this week. Brother Schindler is a returning member, but after a bold lesson last night and as guided by the spirit we found out what his hold up is. We know he is struggling with smoking, but we found out he has no hope. He doens't have hope that he can quit. That's what we will focus our next lesson on so we can help him more.
Being a missionary is the best decision I have made thusfar in my life. It has changed my life for the better and taught me how to change so that I can be more align with God's will. I love seeing the atonement change other people's lives. I know this gosepl is true.
Love Sister Barton
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