Monday, November 5, 2012

That uncomfortable feeling you get from ripping the head off your soup (Oct 29)

Hello loved ones,
 
Man it's been a good week. I hope you're all doing well and feeling blessed.
 
I got a picture of Clara's haloween costume. Very cute. And congratulations warren and leanne on finding out about the twins!
 
I'll jump right into things and try to waste no breath this week.
 
I shaved my head. Well my companion shaved it at least. Only with a 4 it's not actually THAT short. But it looks way different than it ever has. Feels pretty tough.
 
Halloween is this week. I want to go tracting but I dont think we are allowed to.
 
There is a new mission prayer finding (tracting) tactic. It's called politic finding. I suspect I dont even haev to explain it but basically you knock all doors with a Romney sign in the front yard. Its an english missionary thing. And I think people spend a lot more time joking about it than actually doing it.
 
As for the spanish missioanries. Well we will stick to puting everyone with the last name hernandez into our GPS. (We do that) (Well my companion did at least) (before I got here) (I'll stop with the brackets now) (we have found some cool hernandez's though)
 
Viseted the soap opera house in our complex I talked about last week. Knocked and the old white guy answered. He told us we didnt need to bother "them" (the honduran women) anymore and then slammed the door in our face. I'll be honest. I was sooooooo mad. I wanted to say a lot of things that wouldnt have been good things to say to that guy. But thankfully he slammed the door before I could.
 
On to the subject line story. We went to a recent converts for dinner on Sat and she is a very good cook. So she has some huge pot on the stove and I am like oh goodness I know what hispanic people put in soup. EVERYTHING (as far as parts of the animal go) It was a seafood soup. Basically she brought us a bowel with a little broth in it and a half a tilapia, like the whole fish, bones and all, just sitting in there. And a huge mound of shrimp. Shell on. Faces and heads still present. You have to rip the heads off to eat them. So your hands are in your bowel like the entire time. My fingers were legitimately very pruney. It was a little weird. But in all complete honesty it was really tasty.
 
We have been working really hard. We have 4 baptismal dates that are solid at the moment. 3 that arent as solid. and a number of solid other investigators. If I stay in this area another transfer (fingers crossed) November we should baptize for my first time and many other times as well.
 
I can't express in an email how my faith is growing. Ive begun to hit my breaking point finally and thankfully. I am beggining to just love what I do all day every day. The things I understood from the scriptures the doctrine I knew in my head is begginging by the power of the spirit to sink into my heart. I feel like I am just barely starting to "get it" doenst mean I get it. Doesnt mean I stil dont have a billion problems to work on just like everybody. But I am really starting to understand. Missionary work is close to the only thing that matters in the entire world. What we do in our families is missionary work in the home. That's the most important missionary work we will ever do. (I think spencer W kimble or David O Mckay said that) The church callilng you have is missionary work within that stewardship. Missionary work is just any form of bringing someone our ourselves closer unto christ.  All the other Junk doesnt matter that much. I was studying faith this morning and it occured to me that all of the things that we should do if we have faith and all of the things that build faith are the same there is close to a 100% overlap. So as soon as we exercise a particle of faith the teeniest bit (alma 32:27 I think maybe) is should begin a cycle of acting on the faith we have receiving more and acting on the new greater faith we have. I was thinking about this and I was thinking "so why doesnt it work like that"
 
Its because we ourselves get in the way. Our natural man. There are so many things out there that undermine our faith. #1 is probably disobedience to the commandments. The simple ones like read, pray, go to church, touch no unclean thing, etc etc on and on. Fear also gets in the way. (Fear of man over god) (D&C 3 cant remember the verse maybe 7 I think)
 
I dont know if this makes sense to anybody other than me but I think that looking at it this way helps me see what I need to do. Not get in the way. ( I understand how lofty and complex of a statemtn that is)
 
Anyways that's my new goal persoanlly to work on not getting in the way. I testify of the power of the spirit. It's rediculous. I literally see it tear down peoples walls and fears every single day. This is the work of the lord. He is on my left hand and my right.
 
I love you all so much.
 
Elder Davidson

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