Week 35: In Which Our Friend Prays Right Away

This week was another temple trip week, so always good!! 

And, I found out I'm staying in the same area with the same companion. Not much will change except that he already told basically everyone that I would 99% likely be leaving so they'll be a little surprised. One of our recent converts, so sad that one of us might be leaving, gave us each a bottle of perfume, or cologne, or whatever you call it when it's for a guy and the packaging is dark blue. Mine is called essencial, which a word meaning I think like lion's fury or something.

In which our friend prays right away -- We received a reference of an Erivaldo this past week. We visited him, and he turned out to be a pretty cool guy, an engineer, so we came back another day. And this second time, we taught the restoration. It was going pretty normal until we got to the story of Jospeph Smith, and the Spirit just hit all of us. At the end, my companion invited him to be baptized in the true church, and at this point they've both already got tears in their eyes. He said yes, and we then invited him to pray to receive a confirmation about the church and his invitation to be baptized in it. 

Now normally, when we invite someone to pray about what we spoke about, they make a little nervous response before we explain for them to do it alone that night and not right in front of us. But Erivaldo, hearing the invitation to pray about it, got right to it. Within a thought's time, he knelt down and started praying outloud, and it wasn't even a vacuous prayer either; it was sincere. My companion was apparently pleading so hard for him to receive a response, and I think he did. 

And lesson learned yet again, that even with all the plans we can make and stress we can have about finding people, it all really is only possible with the Lord's help. 

Favorite Hymn -- This week while studying Christ-like attributes, I read D&C 112:10 about humility:

And I was reminded, that's the lyrics of a hymn, Be Thou Humble! I only remember this because it was the audition song for BYU Men's Chorus so I still have a little PTSD from it.

In my study, I found an example in the BoM of how we need to have humility, with respect to personal revelation and our understanding of the gospel. Her, Nephi is talking to his brother Lamen and Lumuel:

It's a pretty funny exchange. Nephi kinda burns them: "ya'll, if you'd just keep the commandments and have faith, you'd get an answer." But it really is true, and it's an important part of humility that I've been trying to learn, being able to commands or advice from the Lord or just others and being willing to follow it, even if I maaay not think it's the best idea or if it may be a little difficult for me. 

But it's what the Lord wants from us! He doesn't want us to just knock. He wants us to knock, listen, then act. Like the Mission Brasil Brasilia classic Ether 12:12 says:

We gotta be humble, gotta have faith! We gotta be willing to act according to God's will and keep the commandments even before we have a perfect knowledge because us changing our lives little by little according to what God has taught us shows Him that we're willing to learn more.

And that's it for this week!

Till next time,

Elder Haroldsen

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