Week 52: What it's all about

What's cookin?

Well a hurricane is cooking over here and I excited to work with my feet underwater all week (we'll see if what the members are predicting is true).

Apart from that, I had a great and difficult week. Yuk Shan got baptized!! It has been such a special experience getting to teach her from beginning to end and seeing her progress. Thanks to your prayers and her faith she has been able to completely quit drinking coffee so she could make her first covenant with God. Right before the baptism, literally on the steps into the font she told me she didn't know if she could do it. She said she felt like she was going to throw up from the nerves she felt. We said a prayer and as we finished tears were rolling from her eyes and she said “Okay I can do this.” She came out of the water with such a big smile.

I got pretty sick this week but my mama didn't raise a quitter and we powered through but man I was battling to stay awake in almost every lesson. We also spent hours knocking doors to try to find people and spoke with like 2 people but the Lord loves effort and continues to bless us. 🫶

We had a multizone conference and it was so good to learn so much about consecration as well as the importance of a focus on the Book of Mormon in our studies. I love that book. Saw some absolute dogs and said bye to some other absolute dogs. Transfers have officially gotten sad now that so many of my friends here are finishing their missions.

We had a lesson with Yuk Shan in the house of President McClellan the day before her baptism and I will only say that my testimony of the reality and power of the Spirit has grown a lot. I have now had a few lessons in the house of President so it was all chill for me but my comp was freaking out and literally shaking with nerves to teach with President so that was pretty funny.

Stuff:

---cheffed it up on many occasions this week but sorry mom I didn't learn anything about how to cook😅

---did divisions with an area that has been struggling a lot to find and teach friends and we found a super elect single father while knocking (screaming “BUENAS!!” in front of peoples houses).

---In all of Central America we had “Missionary Week” for the members and lowkey the members let us down but Elder Mercado and I had a lit activity/lesson for the ward activity on Saturday that made up for it. 😎

---After missing our chance to give a blessing last week, the Lord gave us the opportunity to give about 10 blessings this week. The Priesthood is so special.

This week I had a couple of realizations with respect to the Spirit. Throughout this life, we have the opportunity to have spiritual experiences that strengthen our testimony. We can have big moments that strength our testimony a lot and little moments where we feel the warmth and comfort of the Spirit. However, being human, we do not have the capacity to remember these experiences to the point that we can always be immovable. We forget, we doubt, we have new trials daily. However, I believe that God did that with a purpose– so that we search for the Spirit daily. So we rely on Him rather than our memory. The Book of Mormon and daily repentance have come to be the most constant tools to help me do so. I love reading the scriptures.

In 2 days I will complete a year as a missionary… what the heck.

Love you all so much!

Élder Snyder