Hey everybody! It's Elder Dread-hey, and boy am I excited to share my week with you all.
I'm now working with my new companion, Elder Antunez. We hit it off super well this week, he's
already like a brother to me. He's from Honduras, and has 10 months in the mission. And I am
apparently his third companion from Oregon! He is a super playful guy, likes to joke around, but
he is also very dedicated and humble. We have made a good team as we have worked together this
week, I'm going to enjoy this transfer with him.
We are also sharing lots of spiritual experiences. We have been really dedicating ourselves to focus
on the most important people and their most important problems, loving them and serving them,
while in the process talking to as many people as we can and blessing them, befriending them, and
serving them. It really hit me this week, to remember to just lose myself in service. It has been
much like a mood for me throughout the mission, as it has come for long periods of time, and has
gone for periods of time as well. And I have been so much happier and content with the things I
have been doing every day with my companion. I would like for it to be a way of life and a way of
being rather than a mood so that I could feel this happy for the rest of my life.
Here a couple experiences I would like to share with you all, the first which I shared with my
wonderful mom, and the second I shared with my mission president.
1. We visited the Pascual family for the first time, who are relatives of the Ramirez, and this visit
was wholly led by the Spirit. Everyone who was there gathered and directed us to the mother who
was laying sick in her bed, and she asked us to give her a blessing. We weren't sure if she was
member in the way that she asked, so we showed her a scripture in James 5 about calling the elders
to give an anointing and a blessing. And so there we were, my companion giving the blessing, and
everyone in the family gathered, witnessing the blessings of the restored gospel. It was awesome.
And right after, we spoke to all of them, establishing our relationship with them as missionaries,
messengers of the Lord to teach His gospel, and desirous to help them understand and experience
its blessings again (almost all of them were baptized as children in the Church). There was one,
Estuardo Pascual, who was talking with us about what he remembers from going to Church, and he
told us he wants to come back again, and bring his wife too (she is not a member). He told us he
wants to find a new job however, because his boss will not allow him Sundays off, and if he
attempts, he may lose the job, and not know where else to go to find employment. We asked him to
bring up the My Path to Self-Reliance packet on his phone (--a packet provided by the Church that
helps members to be self sufficient--), and helped him to understand the purpose, and we even
returned to bring him a triplet of the Scriptures so that he could read it and follow along with the
Scriptures. He was committed to do it. We will see how's he doing, but we were so glad to be able
to help him.
2. We were able to have an unplanned afternoon as a family yesterday with a young boy (10 years
old) named Christopher. He has already gone to church three times and likes it, but he didn't go
these last three weeks because of sickness in the part of his family who has been bringing him, and
this last week he didn't go because all of a sudden his father didn't let him go. We had the first
chance to really have an appointment with him yesterday and we observed that he wasn't able to
decide firmly to get baptized because of this division in his family; he lives with his father, but his
grandmother, his two older sisters, and his uncle live in a different house. But when we came, we
were able to talk with him and his grandmother, and we began to teach the Restoration. Right when
we were about to talk about Joseph Smith, his sisters came and joined us. And when we talked
about the Book of Mormon, his sisters bore to him such heartfelt testimonies. His older sister
apologized to him for her hard personality, and expressed to him that he wanted to know how much
she loved him and wanted him to feel the joy that the Gospel brings. He was crying, both sisters
were crying, the grandmother was crying too... we were all kind of crying right there, because the
Spirit was present, and his heart was opened. We hope he remembers this experience, and takes his
sisters' commitment to read the Book of Mormon every day.
This was the main scripture that moved me this week to serve these families.
17 And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may
learn that when ye are in the service of your fellowbeings ye are only in the
service of your God.
Is there any one way in which we can learn to develop a stronger desire to serve God and to love
him and to obey him? Yes, and it is being the ray of sunlight in the life of another person, in small
or big ways, every day. We develop more love for God as we develop more love for His children,
and we develop more love for His children in the way that He loves them when we follow the
Savior's example and serve them, blessing them and helping them using our God-given talents,
gifts, experience and abilities. This is, indeed, the essence of Gospel-living. I know that this Gospel
is true, that Joseph Smith was a prophet, and that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world. I say in
the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Have a wonderful week! And think to yourself everyday, in every situation, What would the Savior
do if He were in my situation? What would I do if He were standing beside me? Pray unto Him to
guide you and help you and comfort you, remember these things, and thank Him for the blessings
you experience, and in this manner will you come closer to Christ.
Elder Dredge
Elder Braden K. Dredge
Guatemala Guatemala City East Mission
 |
New companion ~ Elder Antunez (Honduras)
|
No comments:
Post a Comment