Woohooooo! The warm (or at least semi-warm) weather has
snuck back! It was so good to actually sweat a little bit this week! Our little
south Texas winter seems to be over and the sweaters are back in the closet! It’s
interesting how big of an effect the weather has on our lives! One of my
favorite things about sunny days down here is that the sunsets at the end of
the day are beautiful! Especially in Alamo where there’s lots of fields and
agricultural areas and the skies are wide open! A few days this week we took
advantage of the warm weather by taking walking days during the daytime hours
so we could go out and talk to more people. In the evenings as we got back to
the truck and drove to our teaching appointments, we would be driving just as
the sunset was ending and the colors in the sky were gorgeous! It was a great
pick me up!
One great miracle this week was the Salazar family! They’re
a less active family we've visited since Christmas and after coming to mutual
on Wednesday (they have 4 girls -15, 14, 12, & 8 and 1 boy, Charles- 6)
they attended church on Sunday and Ashley, the oldest, even brought a friend. They’re
one of my favorite families here and we have a lot of fun when we visit them!
They all wear cowboy boots and have bonfires out in the backyard and being at their
place feels more like the Texan half of the Valley than the Mexican half! We're
also teaching one of their neighbors who have been going through a hard time
recently and it really has been a strong testimony to me of the importance of
helping less active members return to church! Before, I used to always have a
strong desire to find a complete family that we could teach and baptize and I
had felt that I could get close but a family member or two was just always
missing. Looking back now, I can see that my mission really is full of families
in those less active members who have come back to church. They mean as much to
me as those people who were investigators and I know the Lord has put them in
my mission to bring me peace and happiness!
This week my testimony has grown on the importance of work!
Elder Ayers my companion has shown me a good example of the effectiveness of
multitasking and I’ve found that the harder the work, the more the Spirit
prompts me to work in more effective ways! The Savior promises us this blessing
as we work to bless His sheep:
2 Therefore, O ye that embark in the service of God, see
that ye serve him with all your heart, might, mind and strength, that ye may
stand blameless before God at the last day.3 Therefore, if ye have desires to serve God ye are called to the work;
4 For behold the field is white already to harvest; and lo, he that thrusteth in his sickle with his might, the same layeth up in store that he perisheth not, but bringeth salvation to his soul;
(D&C 4:2-4....dad! I remember working hard to memorize
those verses when we were young! That was such a good lesson for me!)
I know that each of us have been give a specific work to do
in this life and that as we honor our callings and responsibilities- whether they
be temporal or spiritual- the Lord will bless us and cause our efforts to
flourish! I’m grateful Mom and Dad and Scott for all the hard work you've shown
me and the examples of everyone else in my life! Sprint to the finish!!!!
Con amor
Elder Cook
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