It has been a good couple weeks. We have seen some awesome progress with some of our investigators. We are also able to knock doors again, so we have been doing a ton of that!! We have knocked out literally all of the apartment complexes in our area and most of the zone.
We also had our exchange with the Assistants this last week. It went pretty well. I went with Elder Roberts. It was pretty cool to get to work with and learn from him. We sure had some interesting experiences. Lets just say that I have had more than my fair share of people tell me about visions on my mission. This guy managed to incorporate Buddhism, boxing, Christianity, and the Bahai faith in his vision. He also said the founder of Islam was Muhhamad Ali. It was interesting.
Elder Schelin and I have the same five investigators coming to church every week. It has been awesome to see them start to love coming to church. The members have been absolutely amazing in helping us fellowship them.
One of them, Rosi, has come to every meeting for the Portuguese group. We had some fantastic lessons with Rosi. While she was on vacation, she texted us asking us to send her all of the chapters in the Book of Mormon on baptism. During our lesson, we discussed what she learned and highlighted those chapters. It was awesome. We had planned on teaching her the word of wisdom, but then she asked some questions about temples, so we answered her questions. She has a super strong desire to get baptized, and said that she will! be baptized.
She did say that one hard thing for her is her family struggles. Her family is kind of fracturing as her marriage continues to fall apart. She said it is hard because she understands and believes all that we teach her, she just is sad because the gospel makes it so families can be together forever, and hers is falling apart right now. We testified to her that there is comfort to be found in the scriptures. We read Moroni 7: 13-19 and she started crying. We also sent her Elder Holland's last talk and Elder Wirthlin's "come what may and love it"
We had another great English class with Rosi. She has the gospel library app downloaded because we have been sending her conference talks (which she loves). She apparently went through the entire application because she was playing some music from the sacred music app when we got there. It was awesome. At the end, we went over the word of wisdom. It went awesome. She definitely has a lot of questions and doesn't completely understand why we have to abstain completely from coffee, but she understands that it is a principle of faith and why she needs to live it. She is going to pray about it.
We had a fantastic lesson with Silvane. It had been a couple weeks, so we weren't sure where she was at with everything, but it was an awesome lesson. She is another example of someone that is being incredibly driven by the Spirit. We didn't even really have to say anything during the lesson. She is just loving the Book of Mormon and church. She bore her testimony to us about God working miracles in her life and how there is a reason that she is here in the US. She is going to come to church in person this week even though she is terrified of Covid. She talked again about the Joseph Smith film and how amazing it was that he said we would see our family again after this life. She then expressed how she really wants to see her mom, who died when she was 5. We told her that next time we would talk about how that is possible, and she got super excited. Silvane has come to church meetings over zoom for the last month or so. She is progressing like crazy and loves the Book of Mormon and the Restoration film. She is scared of Covid, so she hasn't come to anything in person, but she told us this week that she is loving the gospel and church so much that she is going to come to church. We invited her to be baptized, but she said she wants to pray a little bit more to make sure first. This week, we are going to talk about eternal families because she mentioned how much she misses her deceased mom. I expect it to go really well.
We have another family of three (Liv, Rita, and Luisa) that has probably come to church 7 or 8 times. They have been taught pretty much everything. Theirs is a situation that I have never really had before. They genuinely like church, and keep all of their commitments, but they have tons of questions about temple symbology, polygamy, and other beliefs that we have. We have already resolved a good amount of their concerns. They told us that they want to know how to answer these questions before they join the church because their friends from their other church will ask them. The good thing is that we have some awesome members that are helping us. They have made a good friendship with one of the sisters. She served a mission and is all in on missionary work. She is planning on taking our three friends down to the temple grounds and talking with them about their concerns. It should really help. It is crazy because I never thought that they would actually progress, but now it seems like all of the stars are aligning. I would not be shocked if they decide to get baptized.
Scripture of the week: Alma 28: 11-14 and Alma 46:39+41
11 And the bodies of many thousands are laid low in the earth, while the bodies of many thousands are moldering in heaps upon the face of the earth; yea, and many thousands are mourning for the loss of their kindred, because they have reason to fear, according to the promises of the Lord, that they are consigned to a state of endless wo.
12 While many thousands of others truly mourn for the loss of their kindred, yet they rejoice and exult in the hope, and even know, according to the promises of the Lord, that they are raised to dwell at the right hand of God, in a state of never-ending happiness.
13 And thus we see how great the inequality of man is because of sin and transgression, and the power of the devil, which comes by the cunning plans which he hath devised to ensnare the hearts of men.
14 And thus we see the great call of diligence of men to labor in the vineyards of the Lord; and thus we see the great reason of sorrow, and also of rejoicing—sorrow because of death and destruction among men, and joy because of the light of Christ unto life.
39 And it came to pass that there were many who died, firmly believing that their souls were redeemed by the Lord Jesus Christ; thus they went out of the world rejoicing.
41 But there were many who died with old age; and those who died in the faith of Christ are happy in him, as we must needs suppose.
Our mission started something called the faith challenge. We know from the scriptures that God will work miracles when we prove ourselves (or He proves us) to have great faith. We are focusing on faith on a mission so that we can become true instruments in the Lord's hands. It is awesome to see incredible things happening across the mission.
The faith challenge includes an acronym
Study about faith
Pray to have opportunities to show great faith
Act on promptings received.
It has been awesome just to more constantly strive to follow the promptings of the Holy Ghost. The cool thing about this is that sometimes it doesn't even matter if it was me thinking it or a prompting given to me. If it is good, it means I should be acting.
I encourage you all to study about faith, pray to have faith building opportunities, and follow promptings. I know that if you do, the Lord will work miracles in your lives.
I loved representing the Savior in Brasil, I love doing the same thing in Washington, I love my companion, I love the Gospel and Atonement of Christ, I love my family, and I love my Redeemer. I am ready and excited to work harder, learn more, and love better this week!
I love you all!!!
Elder Warren Matthew Dudley
Photo 1 - Elder Schelin’s parents bought us awesome burgers!
Photo 2-3 - The temple in the morning before zone conference
Photo 4 - When you accidentally knock on member’s doors
