Monday, September 7, 2009 -- Finding the Family of Five

I hope you all had a great Labor Day. I had a great day laboring in the work of our King, as it says in my translation of the Spanish hymn "Placentero Nos Es Trabajar."

BYU beat Oklahoma! That's great. I love it when good conquers evil. Ha ha.

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Unfortunately, because of computer problems, I don’t have very much time to write. But I want to tell you about an experience that we had this week.

When Elder Tenorio [of the Seventy] came to the mission last March, he taught us about being specific about our desires in our prayers. My companion and I have been working hard this week, but without the all the desired results. We have a goal to baptize ten people in September, but all the people we were teaching have fallen out of the teaching pool for various reasons.

So last Tuesday, we followed Elder Tenorio's advice. We told the Lord that we would be contacting a certain street at a certain time, and asked him to prepare a family of five who would allow us to teach them. All that day I was anxiously awaiting one o'clock, when we would be contacting 7th street in Cumbres. We were there on time and began to knock doors. With each new person, I had hope that they were part of our family of five, but we knocked on every door and no one let us teach them.

I was sad and disappointed, but we didn't let this affect our work. We went to eat, and then kept working in spite of the appointments we had. Later that day, we saw Raquel, one of our best investigators, in the street. We had stopped by her house earlier, but she wasn't home. It was the hand of God that we found her there, first of all because we needed to teach her, but also because she told us that she would be home in 15 minutes, and we had to find something to do for 15 minutes.

So we knocked the doors of some of her neighbors. There was one woman, with her 16-year-old son, who let us in. They were quite receptive, and the lesson went well. But that day we commited an error and forgot to ask about their family. When we came to our return appointment, I asked about their family. She said that she had three sons, ages 11, 15 and 16. I asked if they were home. She said yes. I invited them to come listen to the lesson. They did. It went well.

Yesterday, we met the father of the family. Usually, I dread meeting the father, because most of the time the men here reject us. But the father of the Garcia Rubina family is the most receptive. So last Tuesday we found our family of five without even realizing it! The blessings of the Lord are great!

My time is up, but I want to share a thought from my mission president, when I expressed my worries to him. It's in Spanish. . . .: "Hay otros buenos hombres que se esforzaron por ayudar a la gente y no lo lograron como era su deseo. Nefi a sus hermanos y cuñados. Alma a la gente de Ammoniah. Nefi, hijo de Helaman a la gente de Zarahemla. Jesus mismo, a los judios. José Smith en la restauración. Etc. Pero todos, como usted, hicieron su mejor esfuerzo. Gracias por ello y no permita que el desanimo se apoderé de su vida."

[Translation: "There are other good men who strove to help people but did not succeed as they wished: Nephi and his elder brothers; Alma and the people of Ammoniah; Nephi, son of Helaman, and the people of Zarahemla; Jesus himself with the Jews; Joseph Smith in the Resoration. But all of them, like you, did their best. Thanks for that and do not allow discouragement to take over your life."