Tuesday, October 3, 2017

Week 55: The Parable of Elder Lewis' Shoes

Buenas Tardes Familia!

Here another week in Sogamoso, and just wanted to make you a little recording and tell you what’s been going on here. So this week has been really interesting. We have had some good things happen and some not so good things happen. One of our best families just went kaput. It’s not because they aren’t interested, it’s just that they have their beliefs and they think that it’s better to stick with that and not be confused. It’s a lot of work to change beliefs! But I know that I am not ready to give up on them yet. So we are going to see what happens. They have a lot of real intent, they just need some guidance. Fortunately, that’s what we can provide.

First and foremost, Happy Birthday Mom. I was thinking about you all week and that tomorrow is your birthday, and it’s the last one that I am going to miss! So there’s that. Just from your emails, it looks like Michael is getting really really tall, and I am willing to predict that his hair is going to go dark, but I don’t know, we will see.

I was super grateful to hear from conference this week. I was super inspired. I was very inspired by the talk by Quentin L. Cook, he talked about humility, because that’s something that I have had to learn here and still have to learn. My chest just burned the entire time he was talking, so I am going to print that and study it all this week. I have never enjoyed a conference so much in my life! I don’t know why this time was different, maybe because I am able to see it in a different light, I am so happy to have been able to watch that and be so inspired by all the talks. It literally felt like it just flew by and before we knew it, conference was over. I really want to, it’s a desire that I have now that I have never really had before, but I want to study all of those talks before the next conference. I think I am going to do something like take a talk or two each week. I have realized that I am not going to change en el noché de mañana, from a night to a day, but I know that if I work on things just little by little, that that’s how we learn. So there’s that!

The other thing that I wanted to share with you guys is that this last week I was super disappointed about the shoes. I was super excited when they got here, I put them on when they got here and walked to the fruit market and back and I had HUGE blisters on my heel. SO what happened was I wore my old shoes for the rest of the week to let the blisters heal, and I took the new shoes, and I realized that the backs were really hard. That was what was happening. So I took them and worked the leather. I just kind of depressed the leather and just worked on it for a little while and then I repeated doing that and I put on the shoes and then I wore them the whole day walking I don’t know how many miles. It didn’t give me very many problems at all. So I just realized something, I couldn’t help but make a connection to the gospel. There are several connections that I was able to make in this story, but one of the biggest was sometimes I feel like we give up too easy. We get a new thing that comes, life is full of new things, but we get a new thing that comes, and we are excited at first, but then when it doesn’t work out perfectly, we give up and go back to what we know, when really we just have to work at it. How grateful I am that my Savior never gives up on me like I gave up on the shoes. He really is our perfect Savior. After I did that, I just felt the spirit, I felt inclined to make that connection. There are a couple of others that you can make too, I was thinking about all the connections that it has to the gospel, but then after I worked at it I was so happy when I put on my shoes, it just felt right. Now still, they are not broken in. It will take time. But like everything else in life, I know that if I just keep going, if I just keep working at it, that they will break in. Then eventually, I will move to a new pair of shoes and have to do it again. That’s how our Father in Heaven wants us to grow. That’s something that I also got out of conference; our Father in Heaven’s plan for our eternal progression. How grateful I am that we are part of religion that not only knows that Jesus saved us, but knows what Jesus saved us for, and that’s to become perfect like he is, and to become perfectly happy, like he and Heavenly Father are. I am so grateful this week. Teaching the Book of Mormon has been different after this conference. It strengthened my testimony so much of the divinity of the Book of Mormon. I truly can say that I know that that book is divine. I have gotten closer to God by it than by any other book. I am working on strengthening my testimony even more of the Book of Mormon.

Well, I know that this doesn’t have very much content, this recording, but I just felt these things so strongly this week. So to end the recording, I just want to say Happy Birthday Mom, and Con and Jess, congratulations on your new house! I want to thank you all for everything you have done for me! I am truly grateful for your sacrifices and your prayers and would have that you would continue to pray for me because I still have a long way to go. I love you all so much, and I will talk to you later. Have a great week. Chao Chao!


-Elder Lewis

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