Weekly Letter: November 9-15, 2010

This week really flew by, and I can´t believe it is Monday again. This second week, we had struggles with the work. It seems like we always seem to start over every change in the area. Because of our new focus here in Toluca it´s been difficult to have the success that we would like. It is when appointments fall time after time, that you really have to work on your patience. I know this week could have gone ten times better than it did as far as finding new people, teaching new people, and teaching in general.

However, I think my companion and I are finding better ways to work together. Some of the things that Chavez liked are things that Elder Mendoza doesn´t like. I´ve realized that I´ve tried too hard trying to be like my companion. Luckily I´ve had good companions before, where it was easier to get along, but what we need to do is not clone each other, but complement each other. We each have different talents, likes, and abilities. So when both of us are working to the best of these three things is when we have greater success in our work. Of course, there is need for compromise, but compromise doesn´t mean becoming someone you´re not, but finding a common medium where both of us can work better together.

That´s one of the things I´ve learned in the Mission that I probably didn´t think too much about before the mission. There are a ton of those things, like learning to not make faces when a sister gives you your least favorite food....for the fifth time (that´s a joke, she´s only given us papaya twice.) Yeah, there are a lot of tiny things that someone learns when on the mission, especially when he´s in another country and culture learning another language. I don´t know if my investigators or I have learned more so far. I´d say we´re pretty even because I´ve seen some pretty drastic changes so in some of the investigators I´ve taught so far.

Another lesson that I´ve learned that might have more of a spiritual application is that, as much as this is the Lord´s work, the adversary does his best to stall it. On Wednesday night my companion and I talked about contacting a family that´s inactive and has a daughter of 13 years that hasn´t been baptized. We sent a message to them that night to see if they would be willing to have her be baptized this week, but we never got an answer. Because they lived in Almoloya, we had to wait until Saturday to see them. As it happened, the mom´s phone(whose number was the only one we had) no longer worked; she had never gotten the message. When we got there, we thought of encouraging them to get ready for a baptism maybe later on, because we didn´t want to challenge them to come to church and be baptized the next day. However, as things happened, the Mother asked if her daughter could be baptized the next day. Well....we weren´t going to tell them no.

That next day, we were witnesses to the adversary´s efforts to stall the work of the Lord. This baptism was not an exception, it was case in point. The family got to the chapel late, the brother had to be interviewed before the services, but they arrived late and he was not shaven. Everything looked bad. Even the baptismal font wasn´t filling up like it normally did because the water pressure was down. Things were looking bad...but then, somehow everything managed to work out, but not only work out, but to do so marvelously with such a special spirit. The brother was interviewed and found worthy to baptize his daughter. Our Ward Mission Leader helped us organize a great baptismal service where the spirit was so strong. It was like literally we had hit the calm of the storm during the service. We were literally running from end to end in the chapel to get everything ready. We arrived for the service, breathing heavy, but we felt the spirit´s presence that is present in a baptismal service. Everything felt right. We made it, they made it. And now I feel like this family had an experience that they won´t soon forget.

Well, I´m about out of time. We´ve got to get ready for a Family Night appointment, and we´re going to see if we can pass by with some other people to set up appointments.

Time to work!
Thanks for the support and prayers.

Cariños,

Elder Blackham