Ok so this week we didn't celebrate St. Paddy's Day at all, I just needed a title. I think it was last Monday anyways right?
Anyway, this week was truly spectacular. Ever since I got to this area, I've been craving it to just catch on fire. We haven't really seen this area live up to its true potential in a really long time, and we've decided to be the missionaries to get it there! Or at least to get it on its way there. So this week I think we finally saw some fruits of our labors. It was jam packed almost every day, and we have next week pretty much packed until Thrusday, and it's only Monday! And I don't think it's due to our own efforts. Sometimes it's our job to put forth the willingness and the faith, but ultimately God directs your efforts and turns effort into fruit. We've been able to contact people that haven't been contacted in years, and often it's because we simply caught them in the right place at the right time. We're teaching a lot of people, and working with a lot of people that haven't been coming to church for a while. Although at times it's really frustrating and depressing to see people not change their lives for the better, and do things you know will help them, you can't help but feel for these people. I'm actually not really ready to go to Brazil or leave this area because there's simply a lot of unfinished business. The potential is there, but it just takes time to get there. Patience is a virtue haha, and I've learned that in a way I probably couldn't ever learn besides being on a mission (or maybe by being married ;) ).
So one example of this coincidental (but really not) we really wanted to find the address to a guy who has talked to missionaries before. We called him a thousand times and he never answered. So last week, I made Elder Powers follow me in trying to find this address. I just couldn't give up because we asked too many people for directions not to eventually find the address haha. We seriously asked like 5 people if they knew where this street was, and they all said yes, but somehow we never got to the street haha go figure. As we continue our search, we suddenly showed up at this random building, that looked like a high school in the middle of a bunch of trees, kind of hidden from the rest of the streets we had been searching. Basically, we ended up deciding to just ask one more person in this place if they knew where the street was! Turns out, this was the place where a man lived whose name was mentioned at a dinner we were at, then never mentioned again. No big thing, but for some reason we had randomly shown up at this man's address, at a perfect time, because he was up in his room (the place turned out to be a nursing home haha), and hadn't been visited by missionaries for years. No doubt the Lord put us there for a reason. It wasn't because we would see another perfect baptism from it. It was for this man, who hadn't been visited, and was lonely. We gave him another Book of Mormon, and walked away, knowing the Lord had used us as instruments in His hands to visit a lonely old man, or as He sees him, a lonely Child of God.
One more quick miracle: We were biking way far away from our house, trying to find a lady, who wasn't actually home (ALWAYS get phone numbers haha it's so much easier!). A little bit discouraged, we biked past a guy who's car was totally stuck in his muddy driveway. Not that we had any really means to pull this car out of the mud, we still asked him. Turns out a bunch of small miracles happened and we ended up getting the car out, then talking to him about all kinds of stuff, including Katy Perry, Iluminati, and Unicycling. And the Book of Mormon and religion haha of course. But he told us he was a professional Unicyclist and toured Europe with a group called the King Charles Unicylcing Troupe. Naturally we didn't really believe him haha but here ya go! Enjoy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77MuklU32lQ
Check it out!
So pretty much all in all, fantastic week!
Love,
Elder Hirschi
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