2013-12-2 Working Hard

This past week was good and we had a zone conference with president Watts and Hermana Watts.  They brought food from the CCM and we ate turkey and stuffing etc. the day before thanksgiving.  Thanksgiving day we just worked as usual.  It was weird because we woke up and exercised and stuff, but during personal study, we turned to each other and said "hey it's thanksgiving today"! but other than that our week was really slow and by slow I mean dead. 

We are working hard here and doing as much as we can to bring people to the church, but this whole week was a bust.  We fasted Sunday and after we broke our fast, and after church from 1-8 in the night we had more lessons than we had in the whole week.  I don't know why we had such a bad week?  We have been obedient down to the letter, and we were so down on ourselves by the time Saturday rolled around because of the lack of success we have had this week.  We were comparing ourselves to other missionaries that were so apostate, and didn't like to work.  But Sunday we just opened our fast and realized that we do our part and after that you leave it up to God and his will.  Sunday made us realize that just by being obedient and working hard does not guarantee success, but we have to be humble and after the trial comes the reward.

Story of the week is a lesson we had with a member that was drunk.  This member was baptized a few months ago and he relapsed into his drinking habits. So we were there teaching him about how he can get back on the right track through faith and repentance. Elder Farr says to him "there are many ways God can help you, prayer..." and I add in the blessing of fasting to receive help.  But He says in Spanish "hold up! I fast!" then Elder Farr and I look at each other and ask" did that experience help you Hermano?" and he said: "No, but I fast once in a while for 24 whole hours, and sometimes 2 whole days!" We start to tell him to have more faith in his fast, and then he blurts out: "I fast from my drinking, and smoking. I stop drinking for a day or two and then I end my fast! Any sacrifice to God is good right?"  Then Elder Farr and I start cracking up and giggling under our breath, good thing this guy was drunk when we talked to him otherwise he would have been offended because we were laughing. 

To answer your questions we went to the temple as a zone and we had to take a 30 minute bus ride to the temple from our area.  The Spanish speaking session was a little rough, but I survived.  I hope all of you are doing great and I will talk to you next week! I Love You guys! (elder Farr painted our house I will send pictures.)