Teaching is a way of life, and I am learning His way every day

 Large Plates

I love our friends and I love baptism and I love Hispanic culture (and food hehe)

Wowza it was a busy week out here in the FOM. We taught so many incredible people this week. Rosalba is progressing so well! She has so many good questions and is already thinking about baptizing her ancestors in the temple, even though she hasn't been baptized herself. She's so busy, so it's not always possible for her to come to church. Please pray that her Sundays become more available and that church becomes a higher priority in her life!

Graciela and Juseli have been doing so good at keeping their commitments. They have been reading from the Book of Mormon and they even watched some of the videos! We went over a couple times this week and one of the times, Juseli pulled out a whole page of notes about the restoration and she literally taught the whole lesson. These people are elect. 

We also taught Wendy a couple of times this week. I don't know if I've talked about her yet, but she's cool! She's pretty hard to read. That could be because we always have to teach her after a long day of work, so she's tired. She was taught in the past, by a couple of Hermanas that I actually know & have served around! When they were teaching her, she wasn't quite ready to accept the gospel. But this Friday as we were teaching her, it became very apparent to us that she already had a testimony of a lot of the things we hadn't even taught her yet. She told us that any time someone tells her that the Mormons worship Joseph Smith, or anything along those lines, she corrects them and testifies of what is true. I felt like she was probably more converted than we had previously thought. I started to ask her if she believed these things were true. She said yes. So, we asked her if she wanted to be a part of the church that had the fullness of the gospel, even Christ's church on the earth today. She said yes! She accepted the goal of being baptized on November 12th!! So please please pray that she can continue forward and continue learning and growing so she can be prepared for that day!

I'm not going to write about everyone we taught--I promise this is the last one. We met an awesome family this week! The mom's name is Noemiz and her daughter's name is Noeliz (that's even more confusing than my family's names, right?) They went to church with a friend a while back and they want to learn more about the Gospel! They're really nice and gave us cookies. I'm excited to keep teaching them!

Last but not least, this Saturday night was maybe the best saturday night of my life. It was a strange combination: a baptism and a Hispanic culture celebration. 

The baptism was actually historical! Diego is the first member to be baptized into the newly formed Davenport group. The group was formed when I came into this area 3 months ago. The members of the group all belong to our ward, they just meet in a different building for geographical reasons. The dream is for the group to become big enough to be a branch! Diego is building up Zion!! He is seriously so converted. He bore his testimony after his baptism and it was seriously so powerful. Good things are happening out here.

After his baptism, we had our ward's annual Noche de Hispanidad!! Everyone brought food from their countries and shared things about their cultures! Some people shared poems or stories about their country, and quite a few even danced (myself included! We did the Cotton Eyed Joe ) it was so fun and so yummy! And you better believe I slept so well the next night. 

Small Plates 

Teaching is a way of life, and I am learning His way every day. 

This week we really focused on our goal of teaching 30 lessons every week, which was an invitation given to us by Elder Bowen. 30 lessons in a week certainly isn't easy but I have faith that it is attainable! For reference, when I first got to this area, we were teaching about 5 lessons a week. This last month or so, we have been teaching 10-15. So, a jump all the way to 30 is definitely a stretch. I only give the numbers so you can understand what exactly the goal is and how much it is making us stretch. Maybe for those of you also serving missions, 30 lessons is nothing. Or maybe it seems impossible. Either way, it's not important. My intention here is not to compare myself to anyone but my past self:)

In our efforts to teach more, we often found ourselves teaching random people in the streets, which I have done before but not at this frequency or at this level of boldness. It's been really fun. In our zone conference, Elder Bowen said something along the lines of, "finding people to teach shouldn't be a scheduled missionary activity. It should be a way of life." 

This week has reminded me a lot of the story in Helaman 10, when the Lord spoke unto the prophet Nephi. He gives him power and instruction, and then we read the following: "it came to pass that when the Lord had spoken these words unto Nephi, he did stop and did not go unto his own house, but did return unto the multitudes who were scattered about upon the face of the land, and began to declare unto them the word of the Lord which had been spoken unto him." 

Nefi, rather than being weighed down by the responsibility and returning home just to think for a bit about it all, went out into the world to share everything he knew, including the things he had just learned as was still probably wrapping his head around. 

"Thus he did go forth in the Spirit, from multitude to multitude, declaring the word of God, even until he had declared it unto them all." This was a personal goal I had this week: talk to everyone, and teach them the gospel if at all possible. It's cool because we can trust in the Spirit to testify of whatever we teach, so not being afraid to share the gospel with people isn't just a way of inviting them to learn more. It's an invitation to feel the spirit if their hearts aren't hardened. 

It's also an opportunity for us as missionaries to feel the spirit more often in our lives. For me, one of the fruits of the Spirit is joy. I have felt so much joy this week as we have met new people and helped them draw closer to their Savior by learning about Him and His gospel. Of course, that isn't something new in my life. I've been doing that full time for a year now. But wow. Teaching this often & this fearlessly has been so fun! On those days where we were able to teach in the streets, I really felt like the Savior and His apostles. I feel like as I have been less afraid to just preach the gospel wherever I am, that I have developed greater love for the people of Orlando, and increased confidence in myself. 

The point of me telling you all this is more than anything to express the joy of sharing the gospel. Let finding and teaching people about the gospel become a way of living, like Elder Bowen taught us missionaries. That doesn't mean every member of the Church needs to be going door to door telling people that Joseph Smith is the prophet of our dispensation. It can be so much more real, so much more genuine than that. Share the gospel because you love people. 

A sweet woman in our ward this week, one of my favorite members, reached out to us and asked if we could go with her to bring her friend a Book of Mormon. When we got there, we introduced ourselves, and then Hermana Bori, the member, gave her friend the book and bore a sweet and simple testimony. She told her that as her friend, it's hard to watch her struggle through her trials (she has cancer), but that she knows the Book of Mormon will be a blessing in her life. She testified that Christ lives and that we learn more about Him in the Book of Mormon than in any other book. That was it. It was that simple. Because Hermana Bori loves her friend, she wanted to share something with her that had blessed her own life. 

That's what I mean when I say being a missionary ought to be a way of life. What we have blesses people. It changes people. But no one will know of the power of His gospel in their lives if we never give them the opportunity to receive it.