Hola Familia y Amigos!
Too many of my friends are finishing their missions 😦 #ImNotReadyForTheRealWorld
Crazy week this week! I described what we did in this week last transfer so I´ll just do a brief recap of the week!
Monday: Transfer day which is basically just us recieving a ton of calls from missionaries with problems with their buses. Some of the reasons are: they couldn’t get their ticket, missed their bus, the driver doesn’t want to let them on because of their documentation, etc.
Tuesday: Dropped off the missionaries ending their mission. Then we went to the mission offices and prepared everything for when the new missionaries came. At 4 we were at the airport to pick up the new missionaries! 11 sisters and 4 elders! I always get so excited with them. They go do some legal stuff and then we share some thoughts with them. After that we waited and talked to them until Presidente finishes his interviews. Then we ate a huge dinner cooked by Hermana Chaparro. 🙂
Wednesday: We had a meeting with the trainers then the meeting with the new missionaries and their trainers.
That day we had to meet with Presidente after to plan of the Mission Leadership Council (MLC). Then we practice role play things that we were going to demonstrate and what we were going to teach to the leaders. I introduced the new Easter Initiative that starts on Friday! Stay tuned!
Thursday: Prepared a lot of MLC and went out to teach a few lessons.
Friday: MLC in the morning and out to teach in the afternoon!
Saturday: Finally a full day of work!
Sunday: Miracle Day!! Last week we were able to find a less active family that has some of their kids that aren’t baptized and this week we started teaching another part of the same huge family, 6 in total: the dad, Jorge, and the kids from ages 9 to 16, Elelia, Kevin, Yennifer (like Jennifer), Aylen, and Brenda! They were really excited and committed to go to church but when we went looking for them everyone in the house was sleeping! We didn’t have a single person at church when it started. Then a young woman walks in in her street clothes and sits down. Then another man walked in that we didn’t recognize either. We went over and talked with them after sacrament meeting. The woman is called Veronica and recently moved to Salta from Jujuy for school. She came to church without any invitation or any friends, just because she needed it! Last week she came to stake conference alone and this week to our sacrament meeting. When we asked her why she said “I don’t know. I just felt like I needed to come”. Her grandma took her to our church when she was little and was never baptized. We taught her and she accepted a baptismal date! Â The man’s name is Alejandro. He’s a relative of a member of the ward and he almost got baptized a while back but things got complicated right before. He’s looking for a change!
Going into Sunday we felt like we had done our part. We are more obedient, we’re working our butts off when we can get in our area, and we’re becoming better teachers but just about nothing was working. With this experience we learned a valuable principle, that “…we labor diligently” but in the end “…we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.”.
And we can paraphrase that like this as well: It is by grace that we receive blessings from heaven, after all we can do. Â We can receive nothing for our own acts BUT if we do act, the Lord and his grace intervene and blessing fall from heaven. Our own strength, intelligence, diligence, cunning, or charisma will never be enough to see miracles in our lives and take us back to God. But, if we do all we can do, he will make up the difference!
I love my Heavenly Father. I know He lives and loves us.
Livin’ the Dream,
Elder Brundage
ELDER BRADEN BRUNDAGE 