This week was pretty great! We have been seeing so much
success in teaching the Gospel lately as a mission and more specifically as a zone!
We have a mission goal from July of last year to have 300 baptisms as a mission
before the Rome temple is completed and what an amazing change in the mission
this goal and our mission president have brought to the mission! We are half
way complete and the trend is only going up! In the last month alone we've had 10
baptisms as a stake! There are people here who are so ready for the gospel in
their lives and we are doing a better job than ever as a mission getting this message
to them.
In other less-exciting news, this week Emmanuel, the man
we're teaching that has planned to get baptized next month, got sick this week
and so we haven't gotten to see him. The ward, however, is doing a great job
fellowshiping him and making sure that he's doing well and feeling like a part
of the family! We had a lesson on tithing the last time we met him and, come to
find out, he had read the gospel principles lesson manual on his own the week
before, so he walked into the lesson already knowing everything haha. Also, Viviana,
the person we help with math, came to church with last Sunday without the rest
of her family, who we are also teaching. The rest of the family couldn't come
because they were all were sick, but on the phone Viviana told us that she was
feeling fine and still wanted to come even without them. Her faith is growing
so fast!
This week I read Luke 6:45 which says, "A good man out
of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an
evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil:
for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh." This is so true! No
good person is comfortable doing wrong and no evil person is comfortable doing
good. For the one will fear doing wrong and will be uneasy and the other will
hate doing good and complain and whine and make excuses and cut corners and lie
and do anything not to do it. I think at times we fall into both of these
categories. Sometimes we resist following a certain counsel because we don't
think it's important or likewise with a task that we don't want to do. But the thing
about the discomfort I mentioned above is that the more you do what is
uncomfortable for you, the easier it will get. So if you do bad things despite
discomfort, eventually you will get comfortable with them, and vise versa, if
you do good things, despite the discomfort, you will eventually become more
comfortable with the good! That is the difference between the grace of Jesus
Christ and the "power and captivity of the devil". So let us choose
to do good despite the difficulty it may bring! The natural result is that with
time we will become good people, and it's not that the point of why we are here
on this earth? To become more than we are now? How great it would be if we
could all recognize and apply this principle in our own day to day lives!
Anyway, I hope you're doing well! Talk to you next week!
-Anziano Jake Wilkinson
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