Hope that everyone had/is having a great forth of the July. Mines been good. To remember my country, I bought a hamburger. :)
We´ve kind of changed how we´ve been working, and we´ve seen great results.
We have a family that we are teaching that is a mom, dad, and their two daughters. Only one of their daughters is in the age of baptism though. They are the Familia Bermejo. We´ve been working with them and having felt like they´ve made any progress. They always read their Book of Mormon, but they never understood what it was they were reading. I was a little frustrated and to the point that I really didn´t know what else we could do for them. They´ve been having a lot of family problems and I know that reading will helpe them, but we didn´t know how to help them understand what they were reading.
The day Friday was an alright day, but we had planned to do divisions. I went with an Hermana from the ward to the familia Bermejo. Their baptismal date had just fallen through because they weren´t able to get married. It was super obvious that they had just fought or something, because they didn´t even want to look at each other. We taught what we had planned ( I seriously had no idea what else to do) and left the commitment that we had planned to leave. For some reason (which I now know was the Spirit) I felt like I should leave them a question to answer with their reading. 3 Nephi 9:13-20 with What does Christ expect from me? I left feeling like we really didn´t get far with the lesson and feeling bad that I didn´t put my heart into it.
The next day we went again to their house. When the Hermano opened the door he was super excited to see us (always a good sign). We sat down and asked them if they had read what we left them. They all pulled out their books, the 10 year old girl, Nicole, had written almost a page in her homework book. The parents got things out of the reading that were so much better than anything that we could have ever taught them. They were all reading, they were all praying. And yesterday at church, they had great experience. It was incredible.
We taught the lesson and were able to set a new baptismal date goal, and I think that this time, they really are going to be able to do it. I´m so grateful that I listened to the Spirit tell me to just leave one question.
I´ve been thinking a lot lately about what really is faith.
I think one of my favorite scriptures about faith is Helaman 5:10
¨And remember also the words which Amulek spake unto Zeezrom, in the city of Ammonihah; for he said unto him that the Lord surely should come to redeem his people, but that he should not come to redeem them in their sins, but to redeem them from their sins.¨
The part that calls my attention the most is the part that says that we won´t be redeemed in our sins, but from our sins.
That´s the problem us people. We think that for some reason it´s enough to just beleive, but it´s not. We have to constantly strive to be a different person. That´s the reason why this life is so hard, because it´s all about changing from the inside. Stopping doing the things that are easy but wrong and start fighting against the natural man. Too often we expect that Jesus will just fix it all, that He´ll give us the strength, that God will forgive us without our confessing to Him all of our sins.
But it´s not like that. It´s like a little kid playing in the mud that wants to keep playing in the mud but be clean at the same time. It´s impossible.
That is where the faith comes in. Faith is leaving behind the things that we sometimes rather do for the things that (after trying it) we realize have been better all along.
I hope all that made sense.
I have a question for all of you guys though, and I want to get all your answers because it´s a question taht I´ve been meditating for the last little while:
What is the difference between a believer and a disciple?
Something to think about.
Write me with your answers!
Love. Love. Love.
Hermana Cooper
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