Miracles Will Happen - Feb. 10th

Hello Everybody!

It has been a very hot week here in sunny Yungay (Or as the locals jokingly call it, Yungay City or Yungay York). I hope that this past week has brought many incredible experiences for all of you, and that your health and happiness are at their best. This week has been very clear that there are many wonderful blessings in every moment of our lives, if we but look for them with eyes of faith.

Elder Moore, shortly after our first introduction, told me that one of his strongest goals right now is to improve in being obedient with exactitude. Now, this has always been a particular challenge for me in the mission, but inspired by his selfless dedication, I decided to commit to the challenge. And a challenge it has been!

We have had some days of near constant reasons to break some rules, and many opportunities to bend some others. But with a determination to be exact and a strong desire to receive blessings, we've humbled ourselves significantly and done what was necessary to follow the rules, even if that meant cancelling plans and turning down seemingly good opportunities. But in the end, we have received far more blessings than what we have sacrificed.

Though some lessons have suffered, we have been able to achieve greater numbers than we have in previous weeks. Far more importantly, we have been able to bless many more people in more significant ways. Sometimes, our blessings have been more subtle, like a small prompting in the back of our minds during a lesson that inspired several necessary questions. Sometimes, they have been far greater, such as what happened Saturday night.

After a really rough day, several of our promising lessons had fallen through. Our planned activity of Futbol didn't have anyone, apart from a few children of menos activos in the rama, and we found our that our best lesson at the last hour had dropped. We weren't particularly happy, but in our moment of need, we received a very random phone call. A menos activo, who we had visited once in the last two weeks, wanted to set up a Noche De Hogar with us, and we gladly accepted. We found out that night that her non member husband had set up the activity after three months of dodging the missionaries, because something had touched his heart.

He essentially told us that he wanted to be baptized, and after a spiritually inspired lesson, with some very well placed questions from the wife, the doubts of this man just melted away. He accepted baptism, he accepted fecha, he even permitted his young daughter, who he refused in the past, to accept the same date of baptism. We were blown away. After we left, we might have even cheered and hugged, but I was too happy to even express myself, Elder Moore moreso.

We have seen, without a doubt, that blessings and even miracles will follow obedience. The more obedient that we are, the more we can expect from our Father in Heaven. D&C 82:10 and 130:20-21 really show this principle clearly.

There is always more that we can do. We are very excited for what the future will hold, because we know that this time time is a time of progression. Life is always getting better, and there is always more blessings to find and experience. What a wonderful time to be alive and enjoy the blessings of this beautiful world that we have!

Some other things I've seen this week:

When we have set in our ways to not be humble, something will definitely come along and humble us. 

It is incredibly therapeutic to find a house filled with flies and just take a flyswatter to them. During the last five minutes of a lesson with a darling 95 year lady, I borrowed her swatter and eradicated 24 of the little buggers. It felt really good.

Patience really is  virtue. As I've worked on developing my ability to listen first, respond later, I've had several funny and good learning moments. I've seen people accidentaly declare that its alright to break the law of chastity as long as you're not married first, say that the pet horse the woman is keeping alive should be put to sleep, and partially agree to the doctrine of reincarnation, all in the same lesson. It was a lot of fun after to tease the poor individual, and in the end all the false doctrine was put to rest.

I love you all so much, and hope that this week continues to be an excellent one for all of you. There are some incredible blessings to be found and I know with all my heart that Heavenly Father is ready to bless us with everything we need and more, if we but show our readiness to receive.

Sincerely,

Elder Richardson