This week was just crazy. Tuesday morning as we were starting weekly planning, President Houseman Called and explained that Elder D would be returning home. We stopped, and did a planning session for what he would do when he got home to stay in the church, and what he would do to return to the mission. He had some unresolved issues that required him to go home for a time. I could tell that these things weighed really heavy on him, and that this will help him to feel a lot better when he returns.
Wednesday morning I took him to the airport and I picked up my new comp there.
Elder Montiel is from Chile. He has a year and two months in the mission. He is really cool, and he is from a city called Patagonia. He likes to sing and play the guitar and he likes to work, so yeah. This week was really, really busy.
We had to help on Friday with the wedding of Thiago and Tatiane. Saturnday was Thiago's baptism. Tatiane was already a member, but wasn't going to church anymore. She almost died in child birth and was able to recognize the second chance that God had given her. So they talked and decided to be sealed in the temple. In one year, they will be able to do that! It was really a great little baptism. The wedding was also great.
I had a cool experience at church this week. We were sitting in the sacrament meeting, and I started looking around to see which investigators came to church. We had nobody. I started to feel really sad, and I started to pray for comfort and peace. When I looked back to see if I had missed anyone, I started to see Pedro, Bernadete, Nazareth, Irmã Bel, Carol, Aaron (who was a ward baptism, but asked me to baptize him), Emerson, and Thiago. Every single one of our recent converts since I came to Paulista was present at church. All of them are still going strong. It was something that touched me. I am starting to see a bit more quality in the baptisms that we have. It's not just about getting a baptism, but we want to keep these people strong in the church. It was a really sweet experience to see the fruits of our labors all here at church.
This week I studied a lot about accountability. President Houseman always asks us to prepare a talk for Zone Conference. And he may call on anyone at any time to give their talk. So you have to be prepared. But this topic is something really interesting to me. In D&C 101:78, it talks about how all of us need to be accountable for ourselves. God gave us freedom of choice so that we can choose to follow his commandments and be blessed. He asks us to give account of what we are doing so that we can self evaluate. As we pray and tell Him all that was good and all that was bad in the day, we can see the things we need to be better at. And we can repent and act.
I think of when we finish a week and the numbers were awful. As you report the numbers, you feel really bad. But you feel motivated at the same time to do better. As we give counts of our key indicators, we can see how our work is doing. Now I will give you a question to think about. "What would be the key indicators that we need to account for in front of God in our every day live?" As we think of the things that are most important in our lives to fulfill, we can see where we need to be better, and we can make the changes necessary to receive exaltation.
I hope that you are all doing well and that you guys can have a great week.
Love,
Elder Nielson
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