January 13, 2013

Hola familia!

Holy cow such a crazy week. First off, I started driving the car on Wednesday and let me tell you, it was rough. It´s a manual transmission and I think I killed it at least 20 times in the first hour. Pobre coche. But I quickly picked it up and am now driving like a champ, more or less. I got my new companion on Wednesday, Elder Patterson, and it´s ridiculous how much fun and how hard we are working together. I´ve gotten yet another companion that has only one desire: to work hard. We´ve already seen lots of miracles and we´re just going to keep forward with this attitude so that they don´t stop coming! So here´s what´s happened.

On Monday we had concilio with President. We talked about how we´re going to achieve our goal of 250 baptismal fechas and 104 baptisms in one month. We talked about inviting people to be baptized in every moment and how to invite the Spirit so that this is possible. We also talked about a couple of housekeeping items in the mission and President has decided that we will no longer be playing football on Saturday mornings with the members and investigators. Talk about heart breaker. But it´s okay. The potential blessins far outway every goal I´ve ever made in football. So after recieving the training from President we came back to Molina and taught it all to the missionaries and set some goals as a zone for baptisms. Our goals are all really high, and kind of intimidating for some people, but we can do it. I know we can! We all just need to dig in and give it our all, to work as hard as we can, and JUST DO IT!

So elder Patterson and I have the goal as a companionship to baptize 7 people this month. We started the week off with 2 fechas and not knowing if it would be possible. But the Lord guided us and blessed us a lot and now we have 6. We worked really hard with them this week and had all 6 signed up and ready to go to church. I was so stinking excited because all of our fechas were going to be coming. But then in the end none of them came, once again. And I was sitting there in sacrament meeting grumbling to myself when the Spirit whispered me a soft little lesson. Negative comments and feelings towards my investigators when they fail like this is not going to help them reach baptism. If anything it will keep them from it because my mind is filled with negative comments towards them and my faith lowers because of that. Satan wants me to be thinking like this, not the Lord. But what will help them reach baptism is love. If I can love them even when they don´t keep their commitments, eventually they will, and eventually they will be baptized. So I learned to still keep and smile and the Spirit of love and concern for the people I teach even when they aren´t following through. They all have real potential so we´re going to keep working with them. And there are still two and a half weeks left of the month. Plenty of time for them to read and for the Spirit to talk to them.

One of the miracles we saw this week happened in church. After learning that lesson from the Spirit, we went to Gospel Principles class and after about ten mintutes, and woman and a man whom I´ve never met walk in. The man isn´t a member and the woman asks, "who are the missionaries from Molina? This is my boyfriend, he´s not a member." Wait seriously? So it turns out that this lady was in active and living in a small town out side of Molina and up and decided that she wants to go back to church, so she brought her son and boyfriend. The Lord handed us a new investigator, and two members to rescue. I felt even worse for having complained after that one. So here in Molina we´re not lacking at all on the part of people to work with. We just need to invite the Spirit strongly and help them feel the love. Spirit and love. Missionary work. 

So this week we´ll ust be focusing hard on them and trying to help the zone meet their goals. And driving. I love driving. Now that I got the stick down, it´s stinking fun. Anyway, I love you family! I know the Church is true and that it´s the best thing that any of us can ever have. I stand with Paul when he says "for I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, for it is the power of God unto Salvation." Being Mormon is the best. We have the truth. We know who we are. We know what´s right, and we are not decieved. I invite you all the deepen your love and understanding of the "power of God unto salvation" and to search for the Saviors love daily. I love you all very much! Have a good week this week! Love love love

Elder Webb