This week I have learned so much and have grown a lot closer to God, Jesus Christ and the Spirit. We had a really good District Training on Pride by Elder Corry and I realized that I was trying to do the work on my own and was not including God in the work. I had relied on my own strength and not God's. I also read the "Ricciardi Letter", sent from Alyssa:) it's a letter that was written years ago by an Elder and after reading a section of that and after that District Training my life has been changed!
The Elder describes an experience when he was in a rough area and hadn't baptized for about 8 months. He questioned God on why he hadn't baptized and why he kept being rejected after following all the promptings the Spirit gave him. One morning he said an "angry prayer" and brought all these questions and frustrations to God. After 45 minutes God answered his prayer and this answer is what changed my life, God told him, “Elder Humphrey, I am here. I know who you are. I sent you to those neighborhoods, the very ones where you experienced nothing but rejection. I prompted your changes in direction to even more difficult neighborhoods. I know where each of the elect in your area resides. I know their names. I could send you to those addresses only, and save you the time and sacrifice looking for them. BUT ELDER HUMPHREY, WHAT GOOD WOULD THAT SERVE YOU? The mission experience is to do what you are told, when you are told, to go where you are asked, and know that the blessing comes from enduring what I ask of you. This is not about you; it is about opening your mouth at all times in all places. Doing my will without thought to the end result or consequence… this is what serving a mission is."
I at times in my mission have had some of those same thoughts, I have worked hard at following every prompting and going where God wants me to go and yet I haven't baptized in 8 months! After reading that the Spirit hit me so hard and told me that this message that God gave to Elder Humphrey applied to me as well. After that message and after the district training, I made a firm determination that I would include God in EVERY phase of the work, I humbled myself and fervently prayed and asked God where to go and to ask for His spirit to be with me to guide my thoughts and actions. And then we had an amazing Zone Conference about having the faith to find the elect, to be honest I had lost a lot of my faith, but faith is a controllable variable in our lives, we just have to exercise it to increase it, after that training my faith was at a 10! Elder Nogueira and I saw so many miracles following that training once we exercised our faith and relied wholly on God! I've also been a lot happier and a lot of anger and frustration have gone away.
We saw so many miracles I can't recount them all, but I'll share one of my favorites. We were knocking doors on Friday evening at a place that God had sent us. All day I had the impression to try 56th street, so as soon as we were able to go we went straight to 56th street and were led to a specific apartment complex. We knocked a few doors on the first floor with no success, then we both had the strong impression to go upstairs and talk to a couple who were sitting outside. We went and talked with them and they said, "We knew you were going to come talk with us, as soon as we saw you down stairs we knew something was different about you and knew you would come upstairs." They also have a YSA son named Dwayne. We said a prayer with them all and testified that God had sent us. We checked for their Electness and they all accepted an invitation to Baptism and Church, now we needed to check for their willingness. We briefly taught the WofW and asked if they had any problems with any of the substances, the dad, Bruce, said he drank once in a while but it shouldn't be too hard to stop. We asked if he had any alcohol in the house and he had one bottle in the fridge, as we were asking him if he would dump it down the drain he was already in the process! It was such a miracle to be led by the Spirit to them and to find such an elect family! We passed the parents to the sisters and Dwayne came to church yesterday! We will be baptizing him on the 14th!
Dad sent me this question to study last week, "What can I do daily to become a better disciple of Jesus Christ? Look Upward: 2 Nephi 32:3, Look Inward: James 1:22, Look Outward: Luke 22:32"
I studied that question with the corresponding scriptures.
Look Upward: 2 Nephi 32:3 reads, "Feast upon the words of Christ; for behold, the words of Christ will tell you all things what ye should do."
By studying the scriptures and the words of the Prophets we can better know God's will for us and then we can better line our will up with his. We will do what he wants us to do, not what we want to do.
Look Inward: James 1:22 reads, "Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves"
We must constantly be introspecting and make sure we are doing what God asks us to do. In essence, we must practice what we preach. Being a doer and not a hearer is the difference between acting and being acted upon. We must do the little things God asks us to do daily.
Look Outward: Luke 22:32 reads, "I have prayed for thee, that thy fail not: and when thou are converted, strengthen thy brethren."
Once we ourselves are converted we must help our fellow man be converted. The key though is to strengthen our conversion first because we can't convert someone beyond our own conversion. By looking upward, inward and outward we can become converted to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, then we can look for others to strengthen and help them gain testimonies too.
It takes time, effort and continued habits to become a Disciple of Jesus Christ. Conversion comes after consistently living the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Also I got introduced to some of the best food in Central America! We found a Nicaraguan restaurant, called Pinolandia, in the suburbs on Miami and had Fritanga. We had whats called Carne Asada (basically steak), Gallo Pinto(rice with pinto beans), and Maduros(fried sweet plantains). It was so good! we went there a couple times last week and will probably go again this week, I'll finally start to put on weight:) Also when we went last time we ran into a random member from Blue Lagoon so she bought us a meal:) I like members who are generous a lot!
There was also a freak rain storm on Saturday, it rained for hours and flooded the streets! I was dying to ride my bike! It hasn't rained like that since I was biking in Davie last Summer. We got soaked while knocking doors, it was the first time Ive used my umbrella on my mission, since I was usually on a bike when it rained, and it was raining so hard that the umbrella started to leak, not sure how, so we ended up getting soaked anyways, it was great! :)
I love you a lot!
Love,
Elder Spencer Bailey
heres a pic of Fritanga
Here's a couple of pics from the other day:
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