15/01/2018

January 15, 2018

La Kennedy

This week has been a good week. At the beginning of the week I was in the office for the whole day. On Tuesday I was told I had changes. I was allowed to go back to Vinces to collect my things and bring them to Guayaquil after being at the office for 2 weeks healing. On Wednesday I started to work in my new sector. It is the old sector of where the Zone Leaders were before. They had had emergency changes and me and my companion were put in their old sector. But for the fist couple days our cellphone didn't work. It was so hard to get to know the sector and the investigators. The sector that I am in is a little bit more higher class people. They usually require a call before you can visit them. After a couple of days magically our phone started working. Then I was told I needed to come to the office to have an interview with President Alarcón. I went the next day at 10:00 and President interviewed me. He first told me about the situation with my feet. He said that he can´t send me far away because of my feet. He said we will keep observing it and if it gets bad again we can take out the nail. Then he later told me that the Lord has called me to be the new Zone Leader in the Kennedy Zone. He said the Lord has entrusted me with this responsibility and that President knows I will do well. He told me 3 times repeating the phrase, "I trust Elder Smith." I felt so grateful to the Lord for letting me learn how to lead a zone of missionaries and also letting me develop a deeper love for those whom I will serve. Also I am thankful that I can be a help to these missionaries to help them complete their objective which is to invite all to come unto Christ. Later during the week we got to know a couple of investigatores and it turns out that one is was going to get baptized! We had her baptism and it was such a great experience. There was a great turn out. We also have another investigator who will get baptized this month on the 27th. We are excited to guide them to Christ.
Sunday we got to know the bishop better. He seemed very frustrated with the missionary work or something concerning that and was not pleased with the change in missionaries. But what we did instead of getting offended and hurt for the way he reacted we asked what other things are worrying him about the the missionary work in the ward. Then he opened up and told us about everything we need to do and we seemed to have gained more confidence with him.
One thing I am learning as I am reading the book of Mormon is humility. As I ask myself daily what can I do to be more humble the Lord helps me be more and more moldable. He is allowing me to take more advice, to not seek to make others look bad, to be more obedient, to love God and give him credit for what he has done in my life and the lives of others. I know that this is the Spirit that is helping me take away my natural man. I know that the Lord is my Savior and my Redeemer. I know that he is a God of Miracles, of commandments, of families and that has a plan for us and we can learn about it as we act in faith and as we find HIS church that he has established on the Earth. I know that the Lord has used Joseph Smith as an instrument to bring to the earth the truths about God and his plan and continues to teach and guide through the Prophets that he calls today. I know he loves us and know each one of us by name and is concerned about bringing about our divine destiny and become like him. I Love you all!
Update on his toes:
They are ok. I have two huge holes in my toes where the nail used to be. I am having to give them daily treatment by pulling the skin away from the nail and daily cleaning. It is a bit tedious but I know that it will teach me something great.