September 23, 2009

Dear family,

So this week….where to start?

Let´s just say that this last week was verrry busy and we worked very hard to realizar nuestras metas. We have a mission goal to teach at least 20 lessons a week and in my area of Aranjuez, we checked in the archives of the weekly progress records, and the most lessons Aranjuez has every had in one week is 15. These record date back to about 2004, mas o menos. So last week in our planning session, actually two weeks ago tomorrow, we set the goal to teach 22 lessons. It was an act of faith, because even though you schedule a certain amount of lessons in a planning meeting, you don’t always know if you are actually going to teach that many. You can´t always count on people being there and there schedules staying open, not having work, etc. However we planned out the week, had very little free time between lessons and just set the goal to teach ALL of the lessons that we had planned. So the goal was 22. It was a rough week and we knew that we had to teach about 3 or 4 lessons a day to get this. Well we ended up teaching 10 member present lesson, 5 other lessons, 6 lessons to conversos recientes y menos activos, and 3 to members. You do the math and we taught 2 more lessons to less active and recent converts that we planned. We taught 24 lessons last week and we worked hard! We obviously still aren´t perfect but in the planning meeting we realized that in order to receive the blessing of teaching all of these lessons we had to give more of ourselves and give up more of those little things that poke at our sensitivity to the Spirit. We made a lot of sacrifices last week and tried to be really obedient, even in the little things. We weren´t perfect but we tried hard and we received the blessings. We also have 2 people with baptismal dates and we are loving the work! I couldn´t be more happy right now! Because we really are having a lot of success and the Lord is blessing us for our relatively small efforts.

A funny story with our 2 people with baptismal dates. First of all, we have to make two baptismal challenges every week as it is a mission goal, and on this last Sunday night when we were coming home and opening the front gate, my companion was reviewing outloud our two baptismal challenges for the week. He was counting one where we challenge our friend Ronnie to be baptized and he said he wasn´t ready. We read in Doctrine and Covenants 20:37 and assured him that all you really need is a desire to follow the Lord to be baptized, there are other things of course, as are mentioned in the scripture. We asked him to pray about it and read 2 Nephi 31. When we came back later that week he had read it and we asked if he had prayed. He said no, and we asked if we could pray right then with him. He said that would be fine and we asked if he would say it. He said he wasn´t comfortable with offering the prayer to see if he should be baptized, which possibly is a sign that he doesn´t pray very much, another thing we need to discuss with him. I explained to him that in order to receive personal revelation he, himself, needed to pray and that he, himself, would receive the answer that he was looking for. He prayed and felt really, really good. He was speechless for a good 30 seconds and then ran out to get the food that he had prepared for us. Unfortunately, and it was our huge mistake we never challenged him again after that powerful prayer, where he certainly received his answer. This is the second challenge that Elder Carr was counting, the one we didn´t, but should´ve had.
So while he was recounting this out loud I told him that we had had only one this week and he kind of got mad and starting saying that he hated numbers and just wanted to do the work, etc. I was just laughing because I thought that it would be no big deal just to go out and make a contact and ask someone to be baptized right then and then be done with it. His pride got to him, the good pride that helps people do what they know is right, and we went back out to make a contact and challenge someone to be baptized. Now the whole time, he did not have any faith that this contact would go any where and that someone really would accept to be baptized on the street without prior connection.
However, we challenged the second person we saw after a group of men, and told him we were here teaching about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and asked him if he wanted to commit to prepare to be baptized on the 31 of October, I think it was. This whole thing was kind of a joke, because usually the baptismal challenge is so planned out and really heartfelt, and this was so spur of the moment and, I don´t know if I would say shallow, because we always want people to be baptized, but it wasn´t normal. We asked him and asked if we could teach him and help him be ready for this day. This man, looked like a thug, just punk looking and after we asked this he looked at his phone and said well tomorrow isn´t good but Wednesday would be great. We were so shocked that he said yes, in essence. That he was willing to start learning and prepare to be baptized. He gave us his phone number and we asked him his address and he said he forgot. We understood and were about to say goodbye, thinking the phone number was enough, when he said that we could walk with him to his piso and find the direction there. We agreed of course, thinking that this man was golden, and then on the way he said that he was living with a bunch of friends from Bolivia and asked if we could teach them too. We, both completely shocked, especially Elder Carr, said por supuesto, es mucho mejor! We shook hands and parted ways as he went inside. This was a golden contact and really count our blessings. There really is power in obedience, whether it is to a rule or law, or whether it is doing all that you can to accomplish a goal. Heavenly Father will always bless you if you are obedient and trying your best to follow the Savior. These blessings might not always be evident right away, but they will always come. I know that this is true and all of our success right now is evidence and testimony of it.

The other person with a baptismal date is a friend of our recent convert who are both about 16 years old. We hope that all goes well to have him ready when October 31 comes.

I´m out of time, but I think you would like to know that I gave my first talk in a real sacrament meeting in Spain, and it was on the topic of the vale. It was rough, but they said they like it, which isn´t a sure resource. We had 5 investigators there and afterwards a visiting high counselor said that we were doing a fantastic job and asked if he and the stake could do anything to help. The branch loves us too and thinks the same, thankfully. And with the Lords help and by seeing the fruits of our labors, with lots of investigators at church, we are receiving lots of new referrals, that you can tell come with a lot of trust, because they are close friends of the members.

We are counting our many blessings and feel your prayers. Thank you for everything, I pray for all of you too. I love you all and am excited for General Conference. We are also excited about the new bible in Spanish. It is now just like the one we have in English.

I love you all with all my heart.

Love,

Elder Driggs