Yoo! How is everyone doing! Hope everyone had a spooky Halloween!! Halloween isn't super big here in Uruguay, but there's a decent amount of kids who go out, get dressed up, and ask for little pieces of candy. Elder Johnson and I decided to dress up as two missionaries and go door-to-door as well:) ha!
This week was great honestly! Vicente Sosa, who was baptized last week, received the Aaronic Priesthood and got interviewed for his first calling in the church yesterday! He was ecstatic and just super content with everything. Maria (Vicentes wife) is also doing awesome. She called us on Saturday telling us that she was going to try and fast for her first time in her life. She was honestly so excited to fast (she taught me a good lesson there). We talked to her at church and she said she was tired and a little dizzy, but that she was hanging in there! Vicente and Maria have honestly changed my life and raised the bar on how all members of the church need to be.
But I want to tell you guys about Maicol. He's 19 and we started teaching him about 3 weeks ago. He seems to have had a hard up-bringing, having a dad who is a big time alcoholic and very against the fact that God exists. Maicol recently found a desire to start believing in God for the first time in his life just about a month ago from his girlfriend, who is a member of the church. She gave him a Book of Mormon and he's been reading it ever since. He understands that book better than most of the people who actually go to church every Sunday. He had been praying and studying and going to church for 2-3 weeks and said he still hadn't felt anything that indicated that God existed. He said part of him just wanted to give up and throw in the towel and just go back to how he was before. But about a week ago, he said he read 1st Nephi, and prayed after. He said it was the most sincere prayer he had offered yet, and sure enough, he felt something. He said for the first time in his life, he felt as if God existed, and that was the happiest I had seen him since knowing him.
Maicol has come to church a few times now, and we meet with him a few times a week. He rejected our invitation to be baptized, because he said he's still working out some of the doubts he's had, but I'm confident that very soon, Maicol will feel the pure desire and need to get baptized. Ive learned a whole lot from him in these weeks. Many times, we dont get that immediate answer that weve been searching for, and we really dont understand why. We know our desires are aligned with Christ and His gospel, but for whatever reason, God just doesn't bless us with that answer at first. Many times we have to work harder than ever before just to know that God exists, as in the case of Maicol. Each one of us are in this spiritual journey full of ups and downs and a lot of hard, but gratifying experiences. I think Maicol would be able to tell everyone that we dont always understand why we have those spiritual trials, but looking back we always realize how God was with us every step of the way and we learned something that we could have never learned if we just recieved the answer easily.
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| This video was sent to us by one of the Elders living in the same house with Braxton. His message attached to the video said "Elder Shoemaker is a best and the people all love him here." |
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| A picture of some of the Elders in Braxton's zone on a recent P-Day paintball activity! |
