Vamos hacer otra grabación des de Colombia, porque ya no vamos hacer muchos mas. Asi que vamos a utilisar el tiempo que tengo por que solo me falta una mas, listo? Bueno. Chao!
JUST KIDDING! Haha well this week has been very good. We have been working hard, we have received a lot of referrals this week, which has been good. We have an investigator whose name is Sebastian, that has made some strides towards being baptized this week. It’s funny because we were walking out of an apartment building where we were teaching a family and we ran into Sebastian, and he said: “hey, Elders!” We spun around like “wait, who knows who we are?!” and he was like: “Hey, ya my family used to listen to you guys.” And so we set an appointment and now a month later, he’s got a baptismal date. We took him to a baptism there in the neighboring ward called Borrado, and he really liked it. He felt the spirit a lot. I got to be the testigos, the witnesses, and that was really a special thing. It was a mom in a family that got baptized. Very Spiritual. But anyway, I think the greatest day of the week so far has been Sunday. Sunday we got up like normal and prepared to go to church, and at 8:00 we were in Ward Counsel and then after Ward Counsel we went to pick up some investigators that didn’t come, surprise surprise, and then we went to church. We were in Sacrament Meeting and the familia Sanchez, who are very dear friends of ours, they had a son whose name is Eduardo who came back right now from the mission. He is from Venezuela, and in Venezuela right now all the missionaries that go from Venezuela usually serve there in their country because they cant send any foreigners at all. BUT this Elder, Eduardo, went to Italy. Crazy no? But he came back talking in Sacrament meeting with kind of an Italian accent and it was really good to talk with him. His Spanish is a little choppy, but his English and his Italian are REALLY good. Well I know his English, but not his Italian. Haha. Even though I do understand a little bit of what he says, I understand Spanish perfectly, Italian a little bit, and a little bit of Portuguese, the 3 languages are really similar. Anyway, so I got to talk with him. I guess his plans are to go to Utah where he has got an aunt. So we might see him there, he speaks perfect English.
Then, in the middle of Sacrament Meeting, a little girl named Chantal came up to me and she like tugged at my sleeve, I was sitting at the end of the bench, and I kind of leaned over and she whispered “Hey, we have a friend that’s in the bus stop right now. But my mom cant walk very well. So go meet him.” She’s really funny this little girl, so we got up and we went to the bus stop really fast, in the middle of Sacrament Meeting, and we met Patrick. The reference of a member named JD. And Patrick actually speaks English, because he’s from Nigeria. He speaks really choppy, kinda weird English, but it was good to talk to him. He’s living here in Colombia for a few years, and he also speaks Spanish. But ya we brought him to the church (he actually doesn’t live in our area) and it was a lot of fun to talk to him and explain everything that was going on in the church. I taught about the restoration, for the first time in English, that was rough. Anyway, I have never done that before. It was like I was a new missionary again trying to learn the language haha. But anyway, so after church we went to the house of Mauricio and Alma, who you guys know. He made us some rice with some seafood in it. It had oysters, squid, all these weird things that you get from the coast of Colombia. They introduced us to a friend of theirs, but she didn’t want to listen to the gospel so we just had a good time and shared a little message and we went. Then our leaders sent us a text message. “Hey, challenge of the day. Go to your Bishop and ask for a Priesthood Blessing to know where to go and what to do to better your relationship with the members.” So we called the Bishop right then, and our Bishop was a little busy and he was also going to Boyaca in Duitama because his Dad is dying. But ya. So we went to the house of the Bishop “Bishop could you give us a blessing because we feel like we need to know where to go this week and who to talk with and how to better our relationship with the members.” He was surprised but he said “Absolutely Elders.” So we went in their house, and this was a very spiritual experience, and we got there and we were just so full from lunch with Alma and Mauricio, but Sister Maria Ojeña, the wife of the Bishop, she served us food. It was rice with meat and avocados. They just treated us so well. So when we were done eating he got up and said: “Alright Elders, I’ll give you your blessing now,” He blessed us and we just felt the spirit so strongly. He blessed me that in the last week of my mission that I will find people to baptize and that I will be able to help people come back to the church. That was very important, and I will tell you why here in just a second. But ya. Afterwards we got up and gave him a big hug, and I looked at the wife of the Bishop… their daughter is about to go to a mission in Mexico, and she is very nervous. I have talked to her about it before. She is just very very nervous, it’s her first daughter and everything like that. As she talked about it she started to get emotional about her daughter going to the mission and I felt the spirit very very strongly, well the two of us did. I felt the prompting to tell her something. So I opened up my mouth and I looked her in the eyes and I said “Sister, as a representative of the Lord Jesus Christ I promise you that even as you have treated us today, will the people of Mexico treat your daughter.” The spirit filled the room and she just started to cry. I added: “you have treated us very well. So trust in God.” It was just a very sweet moment. The Bishop said: “that’s exactly what I have felt. That’s what I wanted you guys to say.” Haha.
Then we went out, and as we passed by the church we remembered about a less active family and my companion said “Let’s go visit Consuelo.” So we went by, it was like 7:00 at night, and we didn’t have an appointment or anything, but we didn’t have anything really either to do. We had another appointment that fell. But we started to talk with the family and they have had a lot of rough bumps. 3 weeks ago she was so fed up with some of the things that happened with members of the ward that she was going to take her name off of the records of the church. He son is addicted to drugs, her 17 year old son William, we have tried to help and… well… it’s just been rough. But then, something amazing happened. One day, about 3 weeks ago, this sister, I was helping the younger son of this family learn English and I was helping his to read and pronounce and things like that and while I was doing that my companion was talking with Sister Consuelo, and she voiced all of her concerns. But after that, as we shared a message really fast. She said: “You know, I have a co-worker that said something really interesting to me…” She said that she had a dream that her grandmother appeared to her in a place, and off into the distance there was a beautiful place and her grandmother looked at her and said: “I can’t go there without your help.” This woman, this co-worker of Consuelo was very confused about what that meant. Consuelo was just in awe. She said: “I know what that meant!” Even in this moment Consuelo was considering taking her name off the records of the church. So the day after, we get to her house and she says: “what does that mean Elders?” and we were like “Wow. You need to share the gospel with her!” So we pulled out a Book of Mormon and put a pass along card that has a picture of the Salt Lake Temple with questions on the back and we marked Alma 40, where it talks about the spirit world, and we said: “Give this to her and say this.” And we hadn’t heard anything more for a couple of weeks. But then Consuelo called me the other day and she said: “Elders, something incredible happened!” She told me there but she told us again last night. She said that she was waiting for the perfect moment to share the Book of Mormon with her because she saw that her co-worker was always busy. She works in the battalion in front of the US Embassy. I am not sure what she does, she is like a secretary. Her co-worker is always busy with groups of people and so one day, she found her alone. So she said: “Ok, it’s now or never!” So she gave it to her and started to talk. But she didn’t tell her what we told her to say, but she felt like the words just filled her mouth. Remember, Consuelo was considering just 3 weeks ago taking her name off the records of the church. And the woman looked very intrigued. She opened up the Book of Mormon, and Consuelo said: “you need to read this to help your grandma.” Or something like that. So she opened up the Book and saw the card. She said: “I dreamed a dream last night. I dreamed that I inherited a castle. It looks like this one.” You can imagine… wow. I inherited a castle. Is it that important, the promises of the temple? Absolutely. So Consuelo said: “You need to read this book!” and Consuelo told her where the church was close to her and the lady knew where it was and everything. So we left our number on the back, but maybe she doesn’t need it, she hasn’t called us yet. She lives in the South of Bogota. We are in the North. But as she walked away, Consuelo said that she just got this amazing feeling, and she said that she felt a voice say “good Job Consuelo, you did it. You did it right.” She said it was just this incredible feeling. As she told us this last night, she cried. We weren’t there to preach to them, we just listened. Then as she started to talk about these things, her and her husband both said “You know, I think it’s time that we come back to church. Because we were doing things right and I hope that the members of the ward knew that we were doing things right. “ The irony of that experience was that I shared that experience with the Ward Counsel as they talked about Consuelo. About their reactivation efforts for her. I shared that story. “Even though we are still trying to live the gospel the best we can, we are forgetting things.” They both mentioned that they think it’s time that they both come back to church and we take the Sacrament. All had tears in their eyes and it was just a great moment. Then I shared with them the scripture that is from Joseph Smith: “Let know man consider these things to be small things, for there are many things that pertain to the saints in the future.” Talking about the missionary efforts of the members in that period. We just felt that that was true. Just goes to show you that God works in amazing ways and that like it says in Alma, The Lord works in small in simple ways so that great things may come to pass. And he uses small things to bring to pass the salvation of many. So that was the story for the week I think. It was amazing. Just so so good. I just cant even describe the feeling that we had coming back to the house last night. Wow. That’s a family that came back to Christ and how God must love them!
Also, amazing thing that happened, that paved the way for this moment, was that yesterday the young kids from faith in God, the class that they have every other Saturday, the little kids suggested to the teacher, Sister Laqueiro, that they wanted to go visit the children that weren’t coming. They wanted to know what happened to them. That touched her deeply. So they went to visit the son of this family. They had the class, Faith in God, in their house and Consuelo was able to share that experience with them during the class. There are many forces that have been working here. Consuelo being able to share the gospel in her work, Ricardo, the father, passes by the temple every day and sometimes stops to pray in front of the temple on his way to work, the children came by and visited Santiago, their son, and all these things. Then we were able to come and help them recognize these blessings and be able to provide a Book of Mormon to this woman. All these things just worked together for their salvation. How God must love them. So never be tired in reactivation efforts. It’s never too late. The Lord will work through you and will work through the family that is being reactivated to give salvation to many. I promise that. That’s what I wanted to leave with you guys today. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
-Elder Lewis
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