So we had a baptism this week. Jann Carlo. We had it with the zone leaders who baptized the two primary age girls that I interviewed. Jann Carlo is the son of our landlords and he is awesome! Like every night he would be reading his Gospel Principles book or the Book of Mormon or sometimes both! Anyways next week he should get the aaronic priesthood and then we´ll take him out to go to appointments and strengthen his testimony. We are working with his parents but man they are a lot tougher. Basically its because they aren´t willing to put in an effort to actually read the Book of Mormon nor will they pray. They keep telling us that they want to know which church is true because there are so many congregations but they aren´t willing to do their part!!
Y´know thats really toughest part of being a missionary is that you are completely depending on other people to exercise their agency and go through with the commitments that we give them. If they do it they get baptized. If they don´t they don´t. Seriously we would baptize 95% of the people we talk to if they would just follow through with what they say they are gonna do. So as missionaries really our major responsibility is to help people to actually make and keep commitments. because if they do that they prepare themselves to get baptized.
2 weeks ago when we put a baptismal date on Jann Carlo he wasn´t sure if he could prepare himself so quickly but we promised him if he would do his part, God would prepare him and he would be ready. And that we would be with him through every step. And guess what, he quit smoking, got an answer and was baptized on the day that we committed him too. We were actually a little worried that he wouldn´t pass the baptismal interview because he had the smoking problem. But God works miracles in the people that really put in their effort.
And now these same principles apply in my life as a missionary and the lives of every person. If you really commit to do something and then do your full 100% effort you will succeed. God will provide the rest. Its the same with salvation, if we live the gospel 100% then God´s grace is sufficient to apply mercy and forgive our sins so that we can enter into His kingdom. Just like Nephi teaches right? it is by grace that we are saved after all we can do. I know that if you have a righteous goal and you really put in your effort then you will be able to fulfill it and fill the satisfaction of doing so. Goals are so important in our lives and now that I´ve been out for over a year I need to make some goals for how i´m gonna finish.
We also got into a discussion this week with some crazy old guy who knew the bible inside and out, like really understood it well. But really who took us more as a couple young bucks that he could try to force his religious belief based entirely on biblical substance. Thank goodness we have more than just the Bible. We have the BOM, D&C, POGP and the words of living prophets. If we didn´t have those I would have left that conversation very confused.
Anyways thats what I learned this week and we were excited about the baptism, we should have a few more coming up where we will be making incomplete families completed with goals to get sealed in the temple
Love you and thanks for everything that you do for me!
Elder Patrik Connole
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