It was great to see y'all yesterday. Thanks for all of your questions and everything! I felt like I didn´t get to hear much about what´s going on in all of your lives but it was great to see everybody and talk! I know I gave y'all a bit of an update yesterday but I´ll send you some more details of this past week anyways!
This week was really, really interesting with Christmas and everything. We hit a lot of highs and lows with the work here. Elder Hinostroza and I are continuing to find and prepare people for baptism. We were excited to see our investigator, Lourdes, progress but we hit a bittersweet bump in the road. She decided this past Tuesday to go stay with her Dad all of this past week- which meant that we couldn´t teach her and even more sad- that she didn´t come to Church! Despite this, I really believe that her Dad´s house is a lot better environment for her. I think that there will be less bad influences and temptation. But from what it sounded, the change is only temporary, we´ll be stopping by to see if we can find her this week.
With our only investigator that is attending church gone for the week we were back to the streets to find, teach, and baptize! I think God´s hand was especially in our week when we found Brandon this week. I mentioned him in the call yesterday, but I would like to describe the situation a little better.
Brandon is 17-years old and was raised by his mother until a few years back when she was in an accident that left her unable to walk. Since then he and his brother have lived in a house together using money that their mother receives from the government to survive.
We originally met the brother of Brandon, Gabriel, two Saturdays ago when I was in exchanges with Elder Marple. We set up an appointment to return and talk with Gabriel this past week and continued on our way. Then this week, Elder Hinostroza and I passed by to find Gabriel. Gabriel was preparing to leave the house, and didn´t have time to talk to us so Brandon came to the door to talk with us. We explained a little bit about our message of the Restoration and invited him to listen- he accepted and just like that we were off to the races.
In the course of the lesson, we learned that Brandon´s Mom had been in an accident, that they were living off the money from the government, and that as a result of these problems Brandon wasn´t able to attend school this last year and that he and his brother haven´t had electricity in their house in 4 months. We discussed how the gospel helps us, why we needed a restoration, and invited Brandon to find out for himself.
To top everything off, we passed by this past Saturday to a great surprise- Brandon read what we left him (and a little bit extra), and he had prayed for help and that very same night the municipality restored the power to their house. It was really awesome to hear that this small miracle had occured in his life.
We still have a ways to go with Brandon and all of the other people we´re teaching, but I´m glad that we have the chance to help them make and keep promises with their Father in Heaven. I know that he lives, and that he wants us to honor our covenants. He is ready to give us a blessing 100x better than the sacrifices we must make to keep our covenants.
It was a very Merry Christmas here in Argentina. I am grateful to be serving my Savior Jesus Christ this time of the year. I couldn´t do this if I didn´t have the testimonies of many family members and friends to guide me to my own knowledge of my Savior Jesus Christ. I hope that you all had an amazing Christmas and that you enjoy your New Year´s Eve. Remember to reach out to the children of our God that are all around you.
Much love,
Elder Lambert
The photos- 1. The view from the apartment in Santos Lugares, 2. Elder Hinostroza (Peru), Elder Soberanas (Australia), and I in the cyber, 3. Christmas dinner with the Familia Grandón, and 4. our humble Christmas tree in our apartment
No comments:
Post a Comment