Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way

[Email dated August 8, 2011]

Hey everyone,

This week we had an AMAZING experience. It really just showed us that the Lord will bless us when we do everything we can to reach a goal. And if we keep pushing forward with all of our might, he will provide the way for us.   1 Nephi 3:7 from the Book of Mormon:

7 And it came to pass that I, Nephi, said unto my father: I ^awill go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no ^bcommandments unto the children of men, save he shall ^cprepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them.

So, here goes the story.

We have the goal in the mission of baptizing one every single week. It is something that is very obtainable in this mission, and if we work hard we can definitely accomplish it. So, naturally, every week, we as a companionship have the same goal. This week, we had a guy named Jordan, that we were thinking was ready....but on Thursday, it became clear that he would need a little more work and was not going to be ready on Sunday.  So, Thursday night we were thinking, we have this goal, and we need to accomplish it, but how??

We started pulling out all the tactics we knew of. We went through the area book and found a bunch of previous investigators that had been to church before and were progressing and we decided to pass by for them on Friday. We found some news...but still nobody that was ready to be baptized on Sunday. I was looking through the area book after planning Friday night and I came across a couple of old baptismal records. They were of people who had been baptized but had never received the Holy Ghost...so they would need to be rebaptized because it was over a year ago...(for more on rebaptism see Acts 19:2-6). We went to see these people on Saturday.

On Saturday, at about 12:00 during the day, we found one of them. It was a family that was baptized a year ago, but were now inactive in the church. One boy named Cesar, was baptized but never got confirmed. And his little brother was now 8 years old. We invited them to be baptized the very next day....they accepted and the whole family went back to church for the baptism. We met our goal...and more importantly, we helped a family come back into the church...hopefully for good. I know that the Lord works in many different ways and that he worked through us this past weekend to help Cesar and his family. We set goals so that we have something to work towards...and when we work towards it, the Lord can work through us and our efforts. It really was such an amazing experience...I know without a doubt that the Lord guided us, and that we couldn´t have done it on our own.

I know that this Gospel is true and I am so grateful for the opportunity that I have to live it and help others to live it. I hope that you all have a good week. I love you and miss you a lot.

And this is my joy.

Elder Peacock