A Happy Easter

 April 14, 2014

            I really enjoyed this week’s emailing session!  I heard from a lot f people and I felt like I was able to write many people back.  I am excited that Sister Rogers is going to send me and a bunch of other missionaries some conference quotes, especially because I missed a lot of conference this past session.  I think that I might make a study out of each card.

            After emailing, Elder B. watched “UP” while I played the piano.  We waited for the zone leaders to show up and then we all watched “Frozen” in Portuguese.  It was really horrible because it lost a lot of the meaning in Portuguese.  We weren’t able to understand any of the songs, and very little of the wit.  Afterwards, Elder Packard kept singing “Quer brincar na neve?” (Do you want to play in the snow?)

            That night we taught 2 family home evenings with recent converts and members.  They turned out pretty well and we got a couple of referrals so we’ll see how it turns out.

April 15, 2014

            I hope that we are able to actually follow through with baptisms this week.  There are plenty of people who have committed, but they keep postponing for some reason or another. We are working really hard to involve the members in our missionary work.  The thing that I am doing specifically is to gain their trust and with humility, ask for help.  One of our members said that he will start doing contact again so that he can help find some people for us to teach. 

April 16, 12014

            So we talked with P and C this morning before our district meeting , and I got kind of sad because they used a bunch of excuses and stuff for why they couldn’t be baptized.  This time their excuse is that their baby was sick (she is always sick).  Anyways, we ended up giving him a blessing which he wiggled and cried through.  We will see how everything is goes.  

           

April 17, 2014

            P. and C. are going to be baptized!! Apparently our blessing helped their baby to sleep all night long.  They were super excited to be baptized so we scheduled it for this weekend (again).  I really hope that this time everything goes well for them. 

            Funny story, my companion was sitting on a member’s couch and we were talking about how some other missionaries broke a sofa of a member a while back.  Right as wee were talking about it, the sofa just gave out on my companion. 

            We are planning an Easter activity for Friday night so we have been inviting lots of people to come to it. 

April 18, 2014

            We ran around like crazy getting everything organized for the activity tonight.  But all of our hard work paid off and it turned out great!  A. and A. came!  We played the fin “ the lamb of God”, and elder Cetraro gave a little talk about Easter.  Then the zone leaders baptized a family!  It was really a great activity with a great turnout including ward members.  It was our first “integration night” that this ward has had in a long long time.  We finally gained the trust of the wad council and now we are going to have these meetings every other week!  In the end of the activity we had chocolate fountain for a treat.  It was super tasty, but I got it all over myself. It was worse than a little child. Haha 

            I am starting to really love this ward, an that probably means that I am going to get transferred soon.

April 19, 2014

            P and C. were interviewed this week!  Again. I hope that this time is it.  The missionaries from Nova Conquista baptized someone who had been investigating the church for 14 years!  Also, Al. was interviewed for baptism, passed, but said that he doesn’t really feel that he wants to be baptized right now.  We’ll just keep working with him. 

April 20, 2014

            Easter Sunday…packed house!  We had 7 confirmations in our ward.  P. and C were baptized and we had a couple more investigators show up for church.  I accompanied Elder Packard in a musical number, and the talks were great.  Even the lessons were exceptional this week.  It was just awesome. 

            Elder Cetraro and I went on splits and taught a bunch of recent converts.  It was his area before the re-division of the area, so he knew a lot of the recent converts better than I do.  One of the sisters of a recent convert want to be baptized. It’s funny because she was the first member of her family to come into contact with the church, and now she is almost the last to be baptized.  It was super cool because when we asked if there was anything we could do to help her, she said, “Yes, just baptize me!”  I really enjoyed my split with Elder Cetraro, and I was just feeling good. Seriously, he's one of the oldest missionaries in the field (he's at the 1 year 11 month mark) and we just talked about the mission and I realized how much I have ahead of me, and how much I've already learned and accomplished. I'm coming up on what could be the best part of my mission, so I've decided that I'm going to make it the best part! The most important part is that I'm happy… I am really happy just to be a missionary.  I'm super grateful for all of your prayers, but you guys also need to pray for yourselves! One of the things that I need to do now is focus on how I can get better, but how can I do that if I don't even pray for myself? Pray for missionary opportunities and they will come! Sometimes all we need to do is open our mouth! It's not really something that's part of the American culture, but if you talk to everyone, someone is bound to be interested in the gospel.

            This week I have reflected a little bit more about what our Savior, Jesus Christ, has done for us. I have been reading a lot of the Pauline epistles, and he states repeatedly how we are not our own, and about how we have been bought by Christ so that we can be set free. Something that my Dad told me about the great sacrifice that Jesus has made for us is that we all have our problems. Big, small, it doesn't matter. In comparison, our little cups of problems are nothing to the suffering that Christ went through in the garden of Gethsemane. He suffered for us all, and that is something that we really truly can't comprehend. We can't even begin to understand great our own suffering would be if we felt the weight of everything that we have ever done wrong come upon us all at one time. However, our Redeemer paid that price so that we don't need to feel that weight. Now, I would like to ask a question, what does Christ want from us? Everyone should ponder that question and find out for themselves, what Christ wants for each and every one of us. I know that our Redeemer lives and loves us. He wants each one of us to be eternally happy and that is why he guides us today. I love Him, I love His work, and I love you guys!

Happy Easter
~Elder Colvin