Hey Everybody!
We had a good week. We had a good district meeting! We had the sister training leaders and the district leader from another district come and do some training, and it was really good! I learned lots from them. We have some really talented missionaries.
I bought another camera today. It is pretty nice. And isn't going to break. Hopefully (:
We taught a lot of investigators. It was good! We had some members work with us and it was good! I love when members work with us. They always add such power to the lessons, it is great. You should work with the missionaries (:
We also had one investigator who is starting to really let go his cigarettes! For the longest time he has been at one cigarette every day, and that is just how it was, but this last Wednesday he stopped until Sunday! I don't know how he is doing now, but hopefully he's still going strong. He also started reading the Book of Mormon this week. Connection? I think so.
The predominant religion here is Catholic. They all celebrated Holy Week with lots parades and church attendances. All that good stuff. We had some Iglesia ni Cristo that went and did some marches around town as well.
It got kind of chilly the last couple of days, but we made it. Showering in the morning was a little bit rough, but I'm still alive, so it must not have been that cold. (It was only like 80 degrees, but it still felt pretty cold.) Other than that, my week went by super quick, but I still learned some good stuff!
We had a training in our ward about keeping the sabbath day holy, and I learned a lot of good stuff! It was a discussion with some of the leaders of the church, and maybe some of you have seen it, but I really liked it. One of the things that talked about is how we can make the sabbath a delight. I liked that one because that has been something that has really been on my mind. I sometimes feel like I don't really make the sabbath day a delight. Elder Bednar related the Sabbath day to a cool drink of water after a long day of work in the sun. It SHOULD be a refreshing day that keeps us going the rest of the week, but it sometimes just gets lumped in with the rest of the week. But they talked about a couple of things that we can do to really enjoy the Sabbath. To really make it a delight.
The first was that we could make sure we go to our meetings early and get settled in. The suggestion of Elder Christofferson was that we take seven minutes before every sacrament to just ponder the Savior and what he did for us. Listen to the prelude music and just let the Spirit teach you.
The second one that I liked was just take time with your family and share what you learned with your family. I remember that my parents were always really good about making sure that at dinner we all took time to share what happened at church, what we learned, what we liked, and that kind of thing. I remember those conversations were always a pleasant experience, and it was fun to hear the simple testimonies of my family members as they shared their experiences.
The last one is to keep it simple! I know a lot of times on sunday we want it to be a super special day, and so we try and do all sorts of things. Have a fancy dinner, go somewhere special, that sort of thing. But the truth of the matter is, that isn't the purpose of the sabbath. Multiple times the apostles and other leaders talked about how they felt the most time should just be spent with family. Work together to make a simple dinner. Then do some simple activity together that can become a Sabbath tradition. Elder Cook said that he and his family would always sing together after they ate. It wasn't all hymns but did include some, and was a time of peace for him and his children. And it required no extra effort on their part! Another suggestion that one of the sisters had was to spend time doing simple service! She said that her daughters always made cookies sunday afternoon, and then prayed about who needed the cookies that day, then they delivered it to whoever they felt was right! Simple ways to serve and be together, but surely memorable and joyful.
I think that as we really try to make the Sabbath day more of a delight, we will be more happy. The Sabbath day can truly become our strength in life, it we let it. If we strive to give the day to God and our family, we will be happy, and we will find more purpose in our life. That is my testimony to you.
I hope you have a lovely week,
Elder Childs
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