I am pretty excited to see all of my friends when I get home. I am having a hard time picturing Andrew as someone with a lot of gospel knowledge and then speaking Spanish. It will be fun to get to swap stories with him. The garment story was crack up. I am thinking he will be pretty different than when I talked to him last. All the girls were asking about me again, aye? The curse continues. The days are definitely flying by. Another birthday dinner at Chabaar and an excuse to go to the cabin - sounds normal. Danielle getting married, that one is pretty weird. Completely secular... well at least Aunt Awbree got it done. Weddings in the temple are just so simple it seems like. The temple is so important! Oh well, agency and stuff. I hope they are happy with how everything goes and that they are loving the married life.
This week:
So yes transfers was on and Elder Seelos has left me to go to Henderson. My new companion's name is Elder Wilson. He seems like a good guy and he is very strictly obedient. He has a strong desire to share the gospel and we should be able to work hard. Some days I feel as if my work is coming to an end, thinking about home a little bit, but I realize now that Heavenly Father isn't quite done with me yet. I have a few months to help some more people. I have a new companion to get used to and we have some very important work to do in this ward for our Heavenly Father. I get the feeling that it is like "Hey Elder, did you think you were done? :) I have some more stuff for you to do, come on lets go to work." We will see how I adjust to Elder Wilson it should be an interesting transfer. It is always hard to adjust after you shift from one of your best companions. Hopefully Elder Wilson turns out to be just as good.
We had a powerful lesson with Sarah this week. We finished teaching her the Gospel of Jesus Christ on Tuesday before Elder Seelos had left. We had a member with us we followed up and Sarah had been repenting, We picked up from there and taught a powerful lesson about how baptism and the Holy Ghost will bless her life. As we were teaching she said. I get that it is important now and it is definitely something that I want to do in the future but if you Elders push me I am going to say no. I am not ready to make a promise with God. Elder Seelos went and ensured her that we were not here to push her to be baptized that when she was ready she could be baptized on her own. I felt prompted to explain to her about how it is just a gate, yes it is a big step, but it is only a step. Then unexpectedly I invited her to pick a day to be baptized and work toward that day, She was shaking her head before I even got the words out. I had surprised myself... here I was pressuring her to be baptized right after she had just told us not too and after my companion said that we wouldn't. It felt right though. She said she didn't want to pick a day but I convinced her to hear me out. All we were asking her to do was to pray and pick a day for herself. She reluctantly agreed but didn't seem to happy. It was an intense lesson. We briefly explained Enduring to the End and bore strong testimony that this is what Heavenly Father wants her to work toward. Then we left. Elder Seelos didn't seem to happy with me after the lesson but he knew that it had to be done. He was just glad I was the one to do it. The member we had with us was amazed at how bold I was in extending the invitation and how bold Elder Seelos was with double testifying and backing me up 100%
We haven't had a lesson since that day and I know that I need to talk to Sarah and apologize for being so bold and making her feel uncomfortable but I know that it was under the direction of the Spirit. As I prayed that night I had my setting apart blessing ringing in my mind... "Be bold but not overbearing we don't realize the harm we can cause when we open our mouths inappropriately." (or something along those lines.) I realized then that I wasn't too bold because I had done it out of a sincere desire for Sarah to have the gospel, not for me to get another baptism, not just to be stubborn, not because I am a missionary and that's what we are supposed to do. I wanted her to have a full blessing of the gospel. When we are bold with pure love it will never be overbearing I know that is true, we haven't had another lesson with her since then but she did come to church again. Her fellowship/1st cousin Sister Kavea helped explain why we had been so bold. That helped a lot. I just want her to have the gospel so badly. She is one of the people that I am still here to work with hopefully I can be the missionary Heavenly Father needs me to be.
Love
Elder Summers