God Has a Perfect Plan

Happy Monday!

Spanish Lessons with Hermana Clark:

 

 

​Pastelito de frutas- little cake with fruit. As in, "My companion's birthday was this week, so our awesome investigator gave her this little cake to celebrate! She's a sweetheart!"

Esperanza- hope. As in, "And again, my beloved brethren, I would speak unto you concerning hope. How is it that ye can attain unto faith, save ye shall have hope?

And what is it that ye shall hope for? Behold I say unto you that ye shall have hope through the atonement of Christ and the power of his resurrection, to be raised unto life eternal, and this because of your faith in him according to the promise.

Wherefore, if a man have faith he must needs have hope; for without faith there cannot be any hope." Moroni 7:40-42

Tuesday night we were planning for Wednesday and couldn't find anyone to put an appointment with between 11am and 3pm. We were a bit frustrated, but decided to faithfully look for people to street contact in those hours. We felt prompted to try walking down two big highways and try to find people waiting for the bus who we could contact. So we went.

It's tough to find people on the streets in our area, and it's tougher to find people who live in our area. But wednesday, a miracle happened. We walked down those streets and in the course we found two people waiting for the bus who lived in our area and accepted a visit from us. Also, while we were walking, a car stopped and rolled down their window and asked us, "Excuse me, what are you?" We told the two women inside that we were missionaries and talked a bit about what we do. One of them lived in our area and accepted a visit from us. We felt very blessed.

Friday our investigator was going to get baptized, but this whole week she had some hard problems with her family and felt it would be better to postpone it a little longer to help her family understand more about her decision. We were upset, but we still have a lot of hope and know that when it's the right moment, she'll get baptized.

Saturday some appointments cancelled on us and we felt like we should go see a less-active sister who we hadn't visited in a while. She accepted our visit and began to tell us the whole story of her conversion and how she had become less-active. She told us about the desires she had to keep progressing in the gospel, but how for some reason she could not find the motivation to go to church. As I listened to her, I clearly remembered something that I learned a few months ago in a zone meeting. So we read Doctrine and Covenants 130:20-21.

"There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated—

And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated."

We explained that with every commandment that Got gives us, He promises us specific blessings, and asked her for some examples. She mentioned that the Word of Wisdom brings health and the law of Tithing brings prosperity in our homes. We explained to her what the Elders had explained to us in the zone meeting. What do you do to obtain a blessing if you don't know what commandment it's associated with?

You fast.

The law of the fast is the answer to receive those blessings that we know God wants to give us, but we don't know what commandment we have to keep to receive it.

She said that it was exactly what she needed to hear and that she hadn't thought about fasting for the desire to go to church. It was beautiful to feel the Spirit testify in that lesson.

Yesterday we went back to see our Jewish investigator. It was great. She wasn't able to read very much of the Book of Mormon, but a friend of hers who is a member had downloaded the Gospel Library app on her phone. We showed her how you can listen to the scriptures on the app and she said, "This is incredible. God has a perfect plan." We read the first chapter of first Nephi again then read the 8th chapter, which is the vision of the tree of life. She was amazed. We started to explain a bit about the symbolism and she said, "the tree is God, right?" We explained her that it was the love of God. She was amazed. We talked a lot about the love of God and she said that she wanted to partake of it more. She committed to start reading and litsening to the Book of Mormon every day.

The week ended yesterday with some news.

We were in church and President Owen said, "Transfers will be announced tonight. Do you want to know yours now?" We said yes.

He told my companion that she will be opening Colonia Juarez (which hasn't had missionaries in more than a year) and she'll be training a new american sister who gets here today. She looked like she was going to pass out. But I know she will be a fantastic trainer and that she is the correct person to open the area.

I'll be staying here in Del Sol with another sister who's been on the mission for about 4 months. We should have a good time.

I'll miss Hermana Ramírez! After a total of 5 months together (2 in Casas Grandes and 3 here) it's hard to say goodbye. But I know that mission presidents receive revelation from God to know what to assign us and who to assign as our companions. I'm excited to see what this transfer has in store.

Have a great week, everyone!

~Hermana Hannah Jo Clark