This week has been another good one. Things are coming back
to normal a little more because beach season is going to be coming to an end
here real soon. I´m in Cádiz right now writing you, and there is a big
European bike tour going on and they´re leaving from Cádiz this morning.
It´s called La Vuelta Ciclista but I have no idea what it is in English.
There´s a big aircraft carrier in the bay right now where the race is
going to start. Anyway, that´s what´s going on right this very minute.
This week I got to do an intercambio with one of my very best
friends here in the mission. His name is Elder Allsop and I´ve talked
about him before, but he and I sat next to each other on the flight from SLC to
Atlanta and have been friends ever since. Later he was in my district in
the MTC and now he´s my Zone Leader here in the San Fernando Zone. On our
intercambio we were able to FINALLY get in contact with a less active named
Guillermo. When we knocked his door, he let us right in without even
saying anything. I´m guessing it´s been a LOOONG time since missionaries
have visited him because his address was wrong on the member list and we had to
do a little investigation to find him. He is a return missionary and went
inactive pretty much right after he got home from the mission and got married.
We started to share a scripture with him and half way through the message
he gets up and says "wait..." and he got up and opened up a
huge drawer and started to pull out books. After a bit of digging, he
pulled out his old Book of Mormon from the mission, and but a bookmark in where
we were reading so he could read it later. Then he told us that after
being on the mission he wanted to see what "the world" was like, so
he did it, and after figuring it out, he learned how important it was to be in
the church to him. His whole family is rooting for him to come back and
he told us he wants to, so we´ll start passing by there more often. Cool
miracle.
We were also able to get in contact with Jonathan and Victor this
week. They are 2 really good investigators that have both just taken a
nose dive. We stopped by Victor´s house by surprise and he told us that
for now he´s not really interested because he´s not getting any answers.
You can probably guess why. He´s not reading or praying. That
is THE WAY to get an answer but he just hasn't taken the time to do it even
though we try our best to explain it to him. Agency is one of the
greatest gifts we have, but we have to use it wisely! Sometimes I wish I
could just suspend an investigator´s agency just long enough for them to read
and pray and gain a testimony and then give it back to them... ha ha ha As
for investigators right now, we don´t have too many, but we´re working to find
them. We've met a few friends and family members of people in the ward
that we´re hoping to start teaching as well.
You are gonna love this story. So this Sunday, we show up to
church and Israel, one of the counselors of the bishopric, came and asked me if
I could give a 10 minute talk in Sacrament meeting--the meeting was going to
start in like 10 minutes. He said one of the speakers wasn't going to be
able to make it because the roads were all blocked off because of the bike race
this weekend. I said I would do it, but I had no idea what I was going to
talk about. Me and Elder Buttars started scrambling for ideas and I
remembered a conference talk given by Elder Ballard on Follow Up that was
similar to a lesson I had just given in district meeting, so we ran upstairs to
the computer, printed off the talk, and found a Preach My Gospel in one of the
closets that I could use for my talk, because I only had my triple and my bible
on me. I sat down in the chapel and starting throwing together a few
scriptures and parts of the talk as well as Preach My Gospel. By the time
the sacrament started I was pretty calmed down and had a decent idea of how I
was going to do it, but I had nothing organized. My turn came to talk
and, and I got up for 10 minutes and sat back down, and somehow I did it.
That was a miracle in itself. hahaha After the meeting, a few
members came and told me I did a good job and then Stake President Morales came
over to talk to me and asked me to give the same talk in Stake Conference in a
month, so I told him I would. Elder Buttars and I had a good laugh about
that after the meeting, and then recited the scripture in 1 Nephi 4:6 that says
"And I was led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the
things which I should do"
All jokes aside, I really did receive some help
there. I had nothing really planned out before I got up, just a bunch of
chunks of information. But everything turned out well in the end :)
Part of my talk was this scripture:
"Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us
cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still,
with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be
revealed." D&C 123:17
Speaking of invitations this applies well. As
missionaries and members, there isn't much more we can do than invite and
follow up, but God works miracles with the people we invited when they
accept the invitations. We don´t convert, the Spirit does. There is
no way to counterfeit the power of the Holy Ghost, so we should let Him take
care of the conversion, and we can do "all in our power" to invite
people to Christ and follow up with them to assure that they receive a proper
chance to accept the gospel.
Have a great week! Love you!
Elder Adamson
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