Buenas Tardes Familia!
I am sending you another recording from here in Sogamoso,
this week has been pretty darn good. I don’t know, it’s been kind of a hard
week. So, this week I have a couple of things that I wanted to tell you guys
about: the first of them is that I found a really awesome talk on BYU speeches
by… crap what’s his name… he’s from the presidency of the seventy, crap I will
remember In a minute. But it’s called 100% responsibility, and this week it has
changed my life. If you guys have time, go on BYU speeches and look it up. It’s
from August, and it talks about the relationship with agency and responsibility
and how we are 100% free to choose, but that also makes us 100% responsible. It
has really changed the way that I see the work, and has eliminated from my
life, forever, making excuses. I have found that I am able to get a lot more
done If I am not making excuses. I really, really, enjoy that talk. I am still
listening to it almost daily. I just wanted to tell you about that because It has
really made a difference in my life, and also a talk by David A. Bednar that
was also recent at BYU.
But… what I want to tell you guys about this week is my
experience with following the spirit. We went to a house Thursday night, named
familia Polito, and it’s a family of 5 people and we went in and we were going
to teach a lesson about the Plan of Salvation, but we got the prompting that it
wasn’t what we were supposed to do. But as we were absorbed in doing our own
thing, we ignored the prompting and we went ahead and it was just long and it
didn’t feel right. There was something missing and obviously it was the spirit.
Just couldn’t feel it. Just wasn’t any power there. There just wasn’t anything.
That made us really sad as we walked out of that lesson. It was also very long
because of the member that we brought.. went off on a monologue… but the bad
thing was that the spirit was offended because we didn’t listen and it withdrew
itself. If you know what it’s like to teach without the spirit, it’s like being
tied hands and feet and being thrown into the deep end of a pool. You cant do
anything. And so we left that night and as it was 9 o’clock we went back to the
house just wondering what happened. Neither me or my companion felt anything.
So we went back to the house and we agreed that we had a prompting and we
didn’t follow it. That being said, we went to bed that night being very
humbled, very trying to repent for that. But the next day we went to a lesson
with a part-member family, his name is Miguel Angelo, and he is… the husband is
not a member, the rest of the family is, very very active, he is from the army
and he was home resting on vacation these past 2 weeks. This was the last time
we were going to be able to meet with him. We have met with him 3 times now and
this time was the last time we were going to be able to meet with him for 7
weeks. So we went in planning to teach lesson 3, which is the doctrine of
Christ, which talks about faith, repentance, baptism, confirmation, and endure
to end. But as we went in and I started to speak, and as I was humble from that
experience the night before, I felt that we were not to teach that, that we
were to read the Book of Mormon with him. I wasn’t about to ignore it again, so
we went with it. I told my companion, because there was an interruption in the
lesson, it was perfect, I said “we’ve gotta read the Book of Mormon.” So we
read 2 Nephi 32, which talks about prayer. Something happened. There was so
much power in that lesson. As we read that chapter of 9 verses, it was just
amazing. As we ended, me and my companion were just working as a team. It was
awesome! We told him that he needed to take the Book of Mormon with him and
read it while he was in his training that he was going to do for special forces.
That he was to take the Book of Mormon and read it while he was there and pray
about it. He is usually not very interested, but he was very attentive in that
moment, he just had a look about him, the spirit was teaching him. Then my
companion said something that I will never forget, it’s something that I have
never heard him say before, and it was this: “Miguel, I know that if you take
the Book of Mormon and you read it every night, you will come home a changed
man. You will come home a different man.” At that moment, he literally sat back
and thought about it, and I bore witness to my companion’s words and we left a
Book of Mormon with him to take. We thought that the true test would be if he
took it. The next day at church his wife came up to us and told us “Elders, he
took the Book of Mormon with him.” And I knew in that moment that it was
because we were humbled that we were able to listen to that prompting of the
Spirit, that the spirit was there in such rich abundance. Just a testament to
me that nothing can be done without the Spirit. I was listening to a talk by
Elder Bednar and he said that when Brigham Young gave the charge to start
Brigham Young University he said: “I would that you would remember that you
should not teach even the alphabet or the multiplication tables without the
Spirit.” I know that’s true. I pray that from here on out I will never have
that experience of teaching without the spirit. I have learned so much. The
spirit is a vehicle. It is the vehicle by which the Savior talks with his
children. I am learning little by little how to recognize it and how to use it.
The only way to recognize the spirit, or to learn to recognize the spirit, is
by experience. You study about it and then you go out and look for feelings
that you have, and the spirit every time will give you good feelings that tell
you what you are supposed to do. For example, we were out of a lesson on Sunday
night, last night, to end the cambios, to end the.. what do you call it… we
ended the transfer last week. And the last day of the transfer at 8:30 at
night, and were about ready to go home to receive the cambios for our zone, but
we stopped at one more door because we felt like we should. We found a family
of 4 that let us in and let us teach a lesson. I hope I never lose this
feeling. It’s really something very special.
Well, I realize this recording is a bit short and it maybe
doesn’t contain as much content as it should, but it sufficeth me to say that
this week has humbled me and builded me in wonderful ways. I love you guys, and
by the way thank you for the package! I was so happy. The blanket was amazing,
the candy was incredible, and even though the shoes haven’t quite worked out
yet, I am hoping to get them to, but thank you so much for that. I really do
feel loved. Thank you so much. Thank you for all your support and all your
prayers. As I have been humbled I have realized how many prayers are said on my
behalf every day. Well, I love you guys and I will be talking with you later. Chao Chao!
-Elder Lewis
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