So, another week has passed blindingly fast. First, thank you to everyone who wrote me or sent me emails. I love them and treasure them. They are some of the only pieces of home I have, and they mean a lot to me. They give me strength, help me remember why I'm here working so hard, and help me push myself yet harder.
So many mission calls!! I am so happy for all of you serving!! You guys have no idea what joy and purpose you are about to find. Or how much you will learn. I am just beginning to realize it, and it is amazing. If you know someone who I know whose gotten one, let me know who, when, and where. Also what language and for how long, I love seeing what people have been called to do :)
So, this week was pretty amazing. Right now Elder J. Lima and I are working harder than ever before -- and also consequently facing more adversity and trials than ever before -- but we are also being more blessed and more helped by Heavenly Father than I can adequately explain. While you all enjoy winter, we are entering summer, and an average day is well above 100 degrees. There have been times when we were tired to the bone and thirsty, and out of nowhere someone would literally appear and offer us food, water, or a shaded place to rest. One man saw us, and came and took us into his church to drink water and give us sacole (simmilar to ice cream), all the while thanking us for the great service we are doing. I think we are going to teach him soon.
Historically, not much progress happens very fast in this part of Brazil. An average missionary baptizes 20-30 in their mission, maybe 40 if they are lucky. Well, I decided I wasn't going to settle to be average. I decided that I will baptize every single one of God's children in my area. I know the promises the Lord has made to us, and there is literally no limit to what we can accomplish with His help. At times Elder J. Lima gets frustrated with me because I don't stop and I strive to be perfectly obedient to every mission rule, even the ones "nobody" keeps. It's hard. It's hard to be that way. Sometimes people don't like you for it. But it is right. And it is only hard while you are making the change. After the trial of our faith, which will be as great as the change we are trying to make, it becomes easy. And now we are pushing ourselves still further, faster.
We are seeing results. The ward here was dwindling, almost about to regress to being a branch, but we are working to strengthen it, and I feel we will be the motivating power for great change here.
As for missionary work, we have four more baptisms marked, three of which will be Sunday. By the time my seventh week here in the field ends, we will have had six baptisms. And even more people than ever are accepting us and progressing. We are having to plan better than ever before to try to get to them all, and we almost can't! It is amazing. Truly Heavenly Father is perfecting us and trying us so we can better do His work here. So He can better work through us. And every day I ask for more of His help, and He gives it.
At this rate, by the time this transfer is over, the work here will have progressed more in six weeks than it did in six months, and honestly I think that we are barely beginning to realize just what a difference we can make. I feel like we often forget that, all of us. We are children of an Almighty God who loves us and who has promised us His help, His guidance, His knowledge and His power if we will just trust Him and obey. That's all. Trust Him. Obey. He's perfect, why not trust Him? He's our Father, why not talk to Him every day in humble prayer? Great are the things He has in store for thise who are worthy and who ask. Truly I am just beginning to learn the reality of this simple truth.
So, my favorite miracle of the week: A nine year old girl named Camila. Her aunt found us in church and told us she wanted to be baptized, so we started teaching her. This is a miracle in and of itself, nobody has ever searched us out and literally asked us to baptize them before! This little girl has so much faith and is so pure that I almost cry thinking about it. After we taught her the first time, we marked a section for her to read in the Book of Mormon, and explained that if she read and prayed about it she would find even more peace and joy, and that she would know God was her father, and that she would feel His love. She explained that she was barely learning how to read, but that she would try. We returned three days later, and she had read it all. She even marked parts she liked. And she was so happy! It literally fills me with joy to think about her.
The youth in the world these days are often so lost, so blinded by the filthiness of the world, yet here is little Camila - exercising her faith, literally a light shining in darkness. This faith will save her from the broken ways of the world. Here there are so many young women with children and no husbands. Starving and abused and abusing their children because it is all they know. There are so many young men already fathers, yet don't even know or care to know the names of their children, defiling themslves and others and destroying lives with their carnal desires. Yet the gospel of Christ has the power to change this all - to bring life where there is death. To bring a future full of purity and opportunity to this little girl who is just beginning to learn who she really is. How beautiful is that? Anybody who thinks that this gospel doesn't have power, that faith in Christ isn't real power to change, simply has not seen enough to truly understand.
I am so glad to be a missionary. My heart is filled with indescribable joy. Watching the gospel change these people is changing me.
In moments of weakness I have been tempted to think, "Matthew, this is hard. Why are you here? You can't really do anything, you are missing all of the opportunities in your life you left behind. Look at what you had. You had it all. You had family. You had friends. Everyone around you loved you. You had an excellent university.You had a good job, and for the first time in your life you had money. You were comfortable. You felt like you truly belonged. Why are you wasting your time here?"
I am immensely grateful that in these moments of weakness there was also something else in my heart: Faith. A belief in things which I could not see, but were true. A desire to do what Heavenly Father wanted me to do. A hope, and later knowledge, that truly the Lord had prepared a way for me to do what He had asked and that He would keep His promises, that indeed no sacrifice would be in vain. It has been in these moments of weakness I have come to know my Savior best. To remember that He lived His entire life for others, and yet they still rejected Him. To remember that He was perfect, yet He had still suffered all pain. To know that not a minute of His life was "easy", or maybe even "comfortable", yet He choose always to give up His own will and do the will of His Father. What an example of humility. What an example of faith. What an example of love.
This is what helps me go further than I ever thought I could. This is what helps me never give up. And this is why I will keep trying until the day I die. Because He really lives. Because we really are the children of an almighty God. Because we really do have opportunity to learn and grow and become something better that we could not become alone. We all have the promise that we can do it. We can succueed.
Now I am very grateful that these moments of weakness never completely overcame me. That there was always someone there a whole lot more powerful than me to help me - truly my Savior. And now I can see more clearly. I can see the end from the beginning, and I see that all the sacrifice is truly worth it in the end. And now I pray every day that I will have the strength and the faith to not give up before the test is over.
I am so glad for this grand opportunity. Indeed I cannot say even a part of what I feel inside, but I can tell you all that this gospel is so incredibly wonderful. I am so glad to be a servant of God bringing it to the world. I am sad not everyone accepts it, truly sorrowful. We are all children of God, yet many let themselves be blinded and even once they know the truth let themselves be led away by the ways of the world. I now pray every day that I won't be one of these some day. None of us are immune, it will always be work to do what is right and if we don't we too will be led away and will forget the happiness and freedom we once had.
I'll close with a quote a good friend sent me:
"Those who are unaware they are walking in darkness will never seek the light." -Bruce Lee
I am so glad to be a missionary, bringing the light to the world! And to all of you my family and friends! Stay strong! I love you all more than you know!
All the Best,
Elder Viglione
Oh, and Merry Christmas!! :)
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