Familia,
This week has been busy with the new guys in the office. We haven’t really been able to do that much preaching. But the family we’ve been teaching did get baptized! Ah man that was the best baptism I´ve seen in my whole mission. We decided to try to really make it special and organized so they´d remember, always remember it, so we went two hours early on Thursday and set it all up.
We printed out pictures of the family and put them in different places and downloaded Mormon messages to have playing in the background. Everything was perfect and all the people we had planned to have a part in the service all showed up. Almost all of our converts from the past participated. We can always depend on them.
Our recently baptized members gave the most beautiful testimonies I´ve ever heard, another directed the hymns, and the family getting baptized all gave their testimony at the end testifying of the authority of God and truthfulness of this church. It was the most amazing thing I´ve ever seen!
I can’t even describe the blessing I have to be a part of all this. It amazes me how much power the Spirit has in people. This family in almost every visit thanks us for everything we´ve done and tells us how much they’ve changed because of us, but it´s not us! I don’t like it when people we baptize give us credit. We always remind them of who really did all the work, because we don’t do hardly anything.
Something I´ve really come to understand is how important it is to work hard in the mission and it isn´t necessarily why I thought so before. The goal of the mission is to baptize people and every missionary is needed in the field, but the work of the Lord will always go forward, with or without you. The people that would’ve received the gospel will receive the gospel, with or without you. But when I do my best to work hard, I have the opportunity to be a part of helping to make it happen. That´s the difference. And even when I work my very hardest every moment of every day, I´m still a siervo inutil! [unprofitable servant; Mosiah 2:21] We can’t convert people. I still measure up to nothing as a servant of the Lord even when I give it my all. That might sound sad but I love that thought. In the end, God does His own work because the Holy Spirit is the one that makes a conversion happen! There is nothing that a missionary could possibly say to make someone change their life, if the Spirit doesn’t carry it to his heart. God has control of His work and will always help us to help others receive the gospel. He can do it with or without us, but so that we can in turn be changed and grow just like those we teach, He prefers to do it with us.
Love,
Elder Cook
The scripture Elder Cook referred to can be found in Mosiah 2:21 “I say unto you that if ye should serve him who has created you from the beginning, and is preserving you from day to day, by lending you breath, that ye may live and move and do according to your own will, and even supporting you from one moment to another—I say, if ye should serve him with all your whole souls yet ye would be unprofitable servants.”
