Salut ma famille!!!
For Easter my companion and I cooked up a ton of rice, made
an awesome sauce comprised of a ton of peppers, tomatoes, chicken broth and spices,
and last of all, two pieces of grilled chicken. This is about every meal of my
life, but the way that we cooked it up tasted magnifique!
But hey, check out the good news: we've finally had
investigators come to church!!! So, two Sundays ago, we had an entire family
come to church with us! It was so awesome! They weren't able to come this
Sunday because of the Paque, or Easter Sunday, but we did have two other
investigators come to church instead. One of them, named Emmanuel, was someone
that I met when I was with my first companion and the second, his name is
Clemient, and he's one of our newest investigators. With Emmanuel, we just
called him and he said he'd come; and surprisingly enough, he actually came. As
for Clemient, we beat him and his buddy Aldolf at a game of soccer last
Saturday, which my companion and I played with our missionaries clothes on and
we won by one point (only because the other two gave us the win), and so I
guess you could say we won his coming to church. Also, on Saturday, before we
four had our soccer match, we went to a baptism for two investigators of the
other two elders in our apartment so it was a really great opportunity for our
investigators to see what takes place during the baptism and also how to find
the church. Adolf didn't come last Sunday, but he said he'd come next week so
we'll see what happens. As for other good news, we've set two dates of baptisms
the 18th of April for two of our investigators named Caroline and Adel. These
two sisters have been coming to church on a regular basis and they've already
been taught almost all the missionary lessons from two missionaries who had
been transferred. So, all we have to do is pick up from where they left off and
get that baptism done so they can start preparing themselves for greater things
to come in the temple.
I've been having many wonderful experiences these past
couple of weeks; and no matter how hard it gets, I've been making sure to write
in my journal every night so I can share these experiences with you all when I
get back in greater depth. I tell you what though; this mission is definitely
the refiner's fire. It's exhausting in many ways, spiritually, physically, and
mentally, but in the end it'll be the experience that refines me into what the
Lord needs me to become. Thank you so much for your prayers, by the way. I have
no doubt whatsoever that the prayers you've made for me have genuinely helped
sustain me in many more ways that you all could imagine. Lately, I've been
struggling with speaking while teaching due to not knowing what it is that I
should say along with learning the scriptures to an extent that I can use them
to their full capacity. I realize that I need to be patient and that all good
things come through the trial of faith and time, but a bit of extra faith to
help me overcome these weaknesses would be a miraculous thing. However, I am
getting better and I'm learning more and more as I keep going on and simply just
doing everything that I possibly can. But don't worry I'll never give up trying
to improve my testimony, my knowledge and understanding of the scriptures, and
my capacity to teach and to speak.
Throughout the whole week my companion and I have been in and out of the
hospital so the doctors could take tests on my companion to see what's going on
with his incapability to sleep due to his insomnia. We haven't received any definite
results at the moment, but we'll be going in tomorrow again and so we'll see
how he's doing from there. As far as we know, there's nothing wrong with his
brain but it may have something to do with, I want to say his thyroid glands?
But yeah, we're not quite sure yet. At least he's still doing alright despite
his lack of sleep.(2) His name is Elder Rich and he's from Logan, Utah. He replaced Elder Kandua's companion and he is now our new district leader. He's super great, really hilarious, easy to talk to and likes to listen, genuinely motivated and willing to work and lead, and it's just really cool to have him around because he alongside with my companion are true friends.
(3) My companion and I are opening a
new secteur (area) that no missionaries there have yet worked before. We've
been going around talking with a lot of people and we've found a few who are
interested in hearing more about our message so hopefully we'll continue to be
able to work with them. As for talking with people, here's what we do:
"Okay, where should go? Well, there's a door. Let's knock on it."
From there, we present ourselves to whomever answers; we present our message,
and give the person at the door a brochure. There's that, but what's even
better is going to what we call "quartiers." It's basically a row of
small houses linked together confined by a surrounding wall with a small
courtyard in front of the houses to walk, wash clothes, cook and so forth. It's
there where we find lots of families and people who are generally more interested
in and more open to what we have to say. It's people living in these living
conditions who are much more ready and willing to receive us and hear about the
gospel.
(4) Our friend named Soeur Adel who
was in our last secteur chose to be baptized and we were able to attend her
baptism last Saturday! I was so happy that she was finally able to be baptized
because she's so kind, she loves the missionary lessons and understands them
really well, she always keeps her commitments by reading the brochures,
assigned scriptures and going to church, and she always gave us a bag of
bananas after teaching her because we would always do the teachings by her
fruit stand. What's also great is that we would only have to invite her to act
upon a commitment once and she'd do it without us having to bug and persist her
to. That, and she comes to church all on her own every Sunday. Unfortunately, we're
no longer in the same ward so we won't be able to continue teaching her. We
did, however, introduce her to the new missionaries who recently came in to
take over that part of our old secteur and so they'll be able to pick up where
we left off. Another great part of all this is that she has friends who are
members in the church. I tell you what, if the people are able to become good
friends with the members, they're glued right in and I absolutely love
it.
He told these people that it's not
man who created God but its God who created man. It's through God that we are
living, breathing beings, having been given all things. It's says in verse 27,
according to the poets of Athens, that we are the race of God. In the following
verse, we see that if we are indeed the race of God, then how is it that we as
humans can say that God is made of temporal, non-lasting, man-made
things?
Alors, ma famille, voila, la bonne nouvelle de la semaine.
(Well, my family, there you have it, the good news of the week). Avec amour,
Elder Gonzales
