Yeah, it´s another holiday here, but I don´t even know what it is. Yet everyone´s out of the street, and half the stores are closed, even here in Capital. It took us forever to find an open internet cafe. It makes me laugh though, thinking that in America all the minor holidays are celebrated by a bunch of shopping sales, so there everything would be open.
Anyway, we´re still having a great time serving in the Lord´s work. But it was pretty rough numerically because of random protests in the city (which everyone in the Villa goes to no matter what they´re protesting) so there was almost no one home. But we had some awesome experiences with those that were.
But before I talk about that, I want to mention the crazy lady that lives in the tree. We have two investigators who are absolutely awesome, but live in a tiny house that´s falling apart. We haven´t been able to find them for the last week and a half which has been a bummer. One time when we went there, we clapped out side the door, and the neighbor lady who lives in a tree house yelled ¨don´t knock on my door!¨ We tried explaining that we were knocking on the door next to hers, but she just started yelling in this crackily voice, and yelling at ¨Pablo¨ to close the door. Pablo came to the open door, and with a grin slowly closed the door whispering to us ¨Shhhhhhhh...¨ That day we couldn´t find anyone, and Elder Crichlow said to me, ¨Man, this day was already awful, and now we just got yelled at by the crazy lady in the tree.¨ Haha, he´s really taught me how to be positive in every moment, and just laugh off all the garbage Satan tries to through at us.
We went to teach a referral of two young women who talked to the other Elders at a bus stop. They were awesome. They´re mom was pretty distrustful, but my stud of a companion had her laughing in no time. When she heard a little bit of the message, she became interested herself, and we had permission to continue teaching her daughters. Then when we came back, the dad refused to let us in, and without even directly speaking to us, told us ¨they don´t want anything. Come back another day,¨ and shut the curtain before we could say anything. Later, we talked to each of them in the street at different times, and they are still reading the Book of Mormon and praying! Even though their father is incredibly anti-religion, they are doing all they can to hear of the restored gospel. It´s incredible watching Heavenly Father prepare, and then deliver the elect out of adversity so that they can learn how to return to Him.
There are so many things I´d like to share from this week, but I feel prompted to talk about something else. The purpose of this life is to become perfected like our Heavenly Father. We all know that. And we know just as well that each of us has already failed miserably. We´re taught that Christ, as the only one to achieve that purpose, also made it possible for us to become clean of our mistakes and sins that bind us from our eternal heritage. All of these things are the very center of all truth, just as the prophets say.
So what´s going on, then? The Gospel is simple, really. So how did Satan spin man´s perception of it so out of control? Why do the relatively small problems of our life on occasion overshadow the greater truths of the Gospel? The truth is that they don´t. Trials and tribulations never are bigger than our divine potential. Our potential for Eternal Life dwarfs in grandure that of all the efforts of the Devil. What I´ve learned is that, really, life is simple. Not easy, but simple. Trust in God, obey what He says, repent of what you did wrong, move forward, and do as much good as you can.
Though we sometimes lose sight of it, our Heavenly Father never loses sight of our potential for eternal perfection. I promise you that the power He´s begging to give you will crush every challenge that is given you. He lets us struggle so that we´ll grow, but He never limits the help that He´ll give us if we seek it. Perfect happiness can only be recieved by the perfectly repentent and the perfectly humble. And those are the guys who have the power of Heaven behind them.
Thanks for your love. I´m praying my heart out for you all. ¡Hurrah para Israel!
-Élder Goff
P.S. I bought a new camera, but I kept forgetting it for activities, so I only have one new picture. Pft, sorry. I´ll take some more this week. But here´s me and that champion, Elder Critchlow.
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