The biggest event of this week was Tatiana´s baptism! Many of you may remember when I told the story of my pensionista´s (cook´s) son´s motorcycle accident and death a few months ago. About a month after his passing, his wife-but-not-legally came to us and asked to meet with us. We taught her the restored gospel for two months, and Saturday she was baptized. She whispered, kind of to herself and kind of to Elder Ricse as she went down the steps into the font, "I never in a million years thought I would be here." But there she was! The other elders in our branch will be baptizing her aunt and cousin soon, and then all in in the retention effort! She´s super excited for the Women´s session of conference this Saturday and our district temple trip on October 15. So that was sweet!
An update on the district choir: things are getting out of hand haha. Sister Whitney was reminding me of my Grandma Hart, trying to teach this teacher, as best she could in Spanish, how to read music. The teacher didn´t really think much of her advice...that´s when Sister Whitney started to be a little bolder and the Grandma Hart side came in haha. But it´s pretty crazy, she´s got the poor choir doing all sorts of crazy things, then five minutes later she changes it up. It´s all be ear! Then, she asked me to play "How Great Thou Art" for her as she sang a solo. When she got to the third verse, she asked me to play it in a minor key, because that´s how they do it in a version she downloaded off the internet. Um, I´m not my dad here, I don´t just "switch to a minor key" whenever I want haha. The members are such good sports though, and it actually sounds decent. Especially when I turn the piano volume all the way up;) The song is "Si la vía es penosa," a really pretty song actually, but one we don´t have in English. Look it up.
We met with a less active this week, and her husband showed up. We´ve taught him before, but he never had any interest. This time, however, he opened up. He started crying as we talked about how the gospel blesses families, saying how he never had any sort of a family. He´s been on his own all his life, and now feels like he wants to just follow Christ and be happy but he doesn´t want to be wrong in choosing "his church." Wow. The Lord prepares people. We had a sweet lesson with him just about Christ and his gospel. Now, I feel like Nick Kurtz in the BYU Cincinnati game last year (I had to get at least one reference in haha). Wide open, in the end zone. It´s right there, he´s so ready!! I know as we continue to trust in the Holy Ghost and teach him truth, and as he acts on what he feels, he will come to feel the truthfulness of the gospel.
To close: the theme of my mission seems to be experiencing things that I already knew before, but that I had never felt. Getting the gospel from my head to my heart, as Sister Oscarson said. Many times, I shared in talks or scriptural thoughts about Christ with the fishes and loaves, and how Christ has power to magnify weak efforts. Well, here I am, experiencing that first hand! I was kinda discouraged this week at one point, just for the amount of people that we can´t teach basically, when the Holy Ghost reminded me of that. What a comforting principle! As we give ALL we have, it´s enough. Christ can magnify our weak efforts to meet His purposes!
Love you all, and hope you have wonderful weeks.
Love,
Elder Hart
 |
| Tatiana's Baptism |
No comments:
Post a Comment