Hola hola everybody! Hope everyone is having a great week! La vida de un Uruguayo es bien.¡La oportunidad ser un misionero en la obra del señor durante esta época es buenaso! Lots of things are happening in the work right now. This week was a good one, and to cap it off, tomorrow we are having a conference with Elder Gong! Right after that we are having a multi misión conference with the Montevideo misión! Its gonna make for an awesome day!
This past week was really good. We found some great people and are making some good progress with some. One person I would like to talk about today is Maria Rosa. She is a 70 year old lady who is just awesome. She has lived through some insanely difficult trials in her life. Just to name a few, she was abanded as a newborn and grew up living with nuns, her husband abused her, she has had one child die, and another child with cáncer. This lady has been through it all let me tell ya...but her attitude was perfect about it all. Most people say "why me?" when things like that happen to them...it's just natural human instict to do it, but Maria Rosa is the exact opposite! She has the mindset of, "why not me?!!" She said if other people have had to go through difficult things in their life, why wouldn't she have to too? She also repeatedly mentioned how she was able to survive it all only through Jesus Christ. Man she is awesome! Maria Rosa will be getting baptized on the first day of December and I cant wait for it! I thought about her a lot over the past few days and in personal study I read some awesome scriptures that pertain to trials that we face while in this life. First one is Helaman 3:34-35. The people in these verses were beginning to get persecuted for being followers of Christ. They were much like Maria Rosa. In verse 35 it says they just increased their faith and humbled themselves before the Lord even more and for that they were blessed with joy and comfort.
This is the same for everyone when we have trials in our lives. God gives us trials to make us better and it is also a test, to see how we react to see if He can trust us to be His true disciples. We learn in 2 Nephi 26:23-24, that The Lord never does anything in the world save it be for the BENEFIT OF THE WORLD. Because He loves the world, and each of us living in it, everything we go through in this life is only for our benefit, even if it doesn't seem like it is. Gods way is always higher than our way! I am thankful for the trials I have in my life, because they have made me stronger than before. I am trying to learn more everyday to thank God for the difficulties I have in my life. I love you all, have a great week!
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| Braxton and Elder Smyers enjoying some churros filled with dulce de leche. |
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| The Elders playing a little soccer with some of the youth in their branch. |
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| Dogs are EVERYWHERE in Uruguay! Braxton said this dog is always on the roof barking at them! |
