This week was great! I have faith in Jesus Christ, and that this gospel is true. I know that with my whole soul. However, I know my faith in my own missionary work (through Jesus Christ) needs to grow! This week we taught 26 lessons, the most we've ever taught before. I know there are other missionaries teaching 40 or 50 lessons a week, and on Friday I saw how one can teach that many. I'm excited to start this week off working hard to get even higher numbers, and to have more success.
Earlier this week we had a multizone conference where I got to see Hermana Cook, yay!, and also learn a lot from President Wilkinson. We also were taught by the doctor over the central america missions, about how we can eat healthy and take care of our bodies. Afterwards they feed us chicken, potatoes, cooked vegetables, and pumpkin pie. It was really good, but the next day my companion and I woke up feeling sick in our stomachs. It was a miserable couple of hours. We thought we were sick from some bread we had eaten the night before in a panderia, but we talked with the elders in our district and they were sick too. Come to find out, it was the food at the multizone conference! We'd been taught about how to avoid eating bad food and stay healthy, but next day about 60 missionaries were sick! Haha :)
During the conference President Wilkinson talked about how we need to make sure the investigators can get to church on their own, and aren't going to become inactive after baptism. And so after the conference my companion and I were worried, because Raquel and Alejandro are really poor and live about an hour and fifteen minutes away from the church walking distance. The past Sunday we payed for a taxi for them, but realized that we couldn't do that anymore! This week we lined up for a member that lived close by to take them. We left our house early to get to their house early, as the other week they weren't ready when we came by and it took them 40 minutes to get their four children ready for church.
We called them when we were about 15 minutes away from their house to make sure they were up and getting ready, and guess what! All of them were ready and already on their way to the church! What's more Alejandro was coming too, and he had refused to come the Sunday previous. About 2 minutes later we met up with them. They all looked so smart and handsome/pretty. We had other investigators to pass by for, so they decided to continue walking on their own without us. It was really hot yesterday, but they walked the whole way to church, an hour and fifteen minutes away!
It was such a miracle, but we visited them later and Alejandro was really really ill. He can't be in the sun for very long or he get's migraines and other symptoms, that I don't know the name of in English. The elders came over a gave him a blessing. We are hoping he'll improve rapidly and still want to go to church next week.
We had nine investigators at church yesterday, and I have faith that all 9 of them can be baptized, they are really great investigators!
Our last lesson Friday was great and awful at the same time. We passed by a family whose mother was sick, so we were only going to wish her well and be on our way, however the Spirit was so strong the minute we stepped into the house, and so we proceeded to teach a lesson. This was a first lesson with them, and it was PERFECT. Nelly, the mother that was sick, had her son and his family visiting as well. Her grandson, was really attentive the whole lesson and though he's only 8 years old was contributing profound things about God, etc. Both my companion and I had the prompting commit them to baptism, but we were scared, scared that we would ruin our perfect lesson.
We didn't put a date, we didn't ask them to be baptized. And we feel so so bad! The lesson was perfect, but it was also a failure. Afterwards my companion and I were talking, and we know that Satan was rejoicing, rejoicing that we failed. Because I know Heavenly Father wanted us to commit them to baptism! We promised ourselves that we will try our very very hardest to have the courage to ALWAYS follow the Spirit. IT's so important that we do, the salvation of souls relies on it.
Nelly's son and daughter are moving to another city tomorrow, and though we called to try and teach them one last lesson, to try and make up in a small way for our mistake, they are too busy to meet with us. We got their number and are going to give their names to the missionaries where they are going to live. I only hope they receive them.
Saturday we were eating lunch at our cooks house when her neighbor, Jazmin, stopped by. Carmen, our cook, had already given us Jazmin as a reference and so we asked if we could share a short message with her. She said yes and we felt the Spirit really strongly! It's weird, because when our lessons aren't that great we always ask them to be baptized, but when our lessons are perfect we always are scared to commit them! However, we both remembered what had happened the day before and so asked her to be baptized and she said yes. I then said something like"There's a baptism service the 28th of September, if you recieve an answer before then that the church is true, will you be baptized on that day?"
She said yes, and we were super happy. But Carmen said later that she understood what I was saying, but thinks that Jazmin thought I was saying that there was a baptism service the twenty eight, and will she attend it. Obviously my Spanish still needs some work!
I received grandma's package, as well as cards from YW in the ward. Thank you! It made my day! Costa Rica is so beautiful, and I am so happy! Keep serving the Lord, that's all that matters.
Thank you for your love,
Hermana Bratt
Future Missionaries!
My son was really sick after that Zone Conference too! He wrote about it that week.
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