Small Miracles

So this week was nuts.  So much happened, and I can understand why the prophets of the Book of Mormon said they couldn´t write a hundreth part.  I really don´t know what to include.


I´ll start with the first crazy, random miracle.  I think it was Tuesday, Elder Gomez and I are walking down the street, and we hear a voice shout from behind us, ´´Elderes de la Iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los Ultimos Dias!´´  We turned to see who it was, and neither of us recognized him.  He started just talking to us like we were best pals.  I interjected as nicely as I could, ´´perdon, pero no creo que le hemos conocido.´´  ´´Sorry, but I don´t think we´ve met you.´´  ´´really, I´m Adolfo...bla bla´´


He proceeded to give us a run down of the Book of Mormon, the Restauración through Joe Smith, etc.  Then we eventually found out that he wasn´t a member.  At this point, I was just thinking... ´´what the?´´  By the time he started explaing tithing to us, I was figuring he had talked to the missionaries before...  He had.  Once.


As it turns out, he lives in Jocón, where there are no missionaries.  There is no ward either.  Previously, some time, somewhere, missionaries gave him a stack of all (and it would seem to have been ALL) of the missionary panflets.  He seemed to understand the doctrine great.  I have to admit, I didn´t think that he was that golden at first because I figured that someone who knew that much and wasn´t already baptized just thought that the church was interesting, and didn´t actually want to change.


But... then he went into a whole story of this fight he had with his pastor, about how he started defending the church and pretty much bearing his testimony.  CRAZY!!!  Why wasn´t this guy baptized.  That question isn´t as hard to answer as the other one I have.  Why were my companion and I the ones blessed to find him?  He found us in the street pretty far from his home.  That´s a miracle.  I don´t care who you are.


So by this time, HE gave us lessons 1, 3, and parts of four, shared a spiritual experience, and in a round about way, born his testimony.  The kicker at the end was that afterwards, HE asked us for our info so he could come to church on Sunday.  We gave him the info for the Elders in Bellavista (cuz they are closer to him) and we took his info as well.  AMAZING!


More amazing was that he called us the next day, and the elders from Bellavista.  Elder Dever just told me that he came to church yesterday with his whole family.  He paid for a taxi... with the last money had.  Turns out he has no job, but he´s trying to get one.  He makes cool little pens and sells them for a little more than a dollar (I bought one).  His plan was to sell pens at church to pay the way home, but the elders had to explain how he couldn´t do that.  Haha!  I love this guy.  He´s incredible.  So he wants to be baptized, and they are working out a way to teach him somehow.  I think for a while they were trying to explain the lessons through the phone... haha.


Next story.  Luckily, this guy lives in OUR boundries. :)


My comp and I were contacting doors.  We hardly never do that because lately we´ve been blessed to have enough investigators to fill our day.  But as it turns out, God had someone prepared for us and used this tiny window to lead us to him.  Probably the third house we contacted was Pedro.  (So much for the one in a thousand statistic.)  We sat down, and the Spirit just got really bold.  He seemed really receptive.  We started off by just trying to break up the ice a bit, and finally he started to ask questions (which is what we wanted).  He had a little bit about Joseph Smith.  We explained it as fast as possible.  ´´Oh, okay.  They always told me he was your God, but I guess that´s not true.´´  Well that went well.  So then we just started going through a quick lesson three.  ´´Do you have faith in Jesus Christ?´´  ´´Claro que si.´´  ´´Well, then you need to repent of your sins and be baptized.´´  That is a condenced version of what took about 20 minutes from the contact to the closing prayer.  ´´We always offer the invitation to come to church on Sundays.´´


That´s the hardest part.  Getting them to church.  We set a date for baptism right then and there, and he said he would come to church.  CRAZY!  His  date is the 19th.


So we were fasting and working hard Sunday morning to try and get people to church.  When we finally got Josue to church (which was way too much work, but now we can baptize the kid this week, haha) we started looking to see which investigators were there.  We had a great turn out!


I was feeling great, thinking about those who were there.  Naturally I started thinking about the ones not there.  Pedro wasn´t there.  I started praying hard.  ´´Father, just give him the desire to come and to be able to get here.´´  Five minutes later, Pedro walked in.  We´re definitely going to baptize this guy.


I just want people to realize at this point in this update, you (like Aaron) might be thinking, ´´Wow, you really must think you´re one stellar missionary.´´  And while I risk the appearance of arogance by adopting the response of Ammon, I honestly am sharing these experiences to glorify God.  His hand is literally in everything!  We´ve seen it every day this week.  Miracles are following us around everywhere!!!


I really couldn´t be happier.  Things are great.  This church is true.  These weren´t even the most spiritual experiences I had this week, but the others are too personal.  In that vein however, I simply want to testify that God is our loving Heavenly Father.  He´s my Father.  He loves every one of us.  I know He loves me and that I am His Son.  Possibly, for the first time in my life I can truly say that without a single doubt in my mind.  I love Him, and I love this life that He has given me.  It´s really hard.  But He gives me peace, and all that I need to be happy.


I love you all, and pray for you all, all the time.  THANK YOU SO MUCH for the letters, support, and most of all the prayers.  I can feel them.  Know that God is answering them.  Thank you.


Les amo muchisimo!


Elder Kent Thalman