The beginning of the week was hard because we were literally walking around all day because almost none of our teaching appointments ended up being at their house. However, the Hernandez Family turned out to be one of the only families that were there. And I am glad to say that they will be getting baptized on the 3rd of May. Besides that we were not really having any success and ended up almost getting in a huge debate with a bunch of drunk Catholics that really had no idea what they were saying. After that I had the feeling to go with the Martinez Family even though it was almost 8 and we had another lesson with the Hernandez Family at 8. The Martinez are great and want to get baptized, but the husband does not want to get married. We got there and I was thinking, "Why are we here? We are not going to be able to achieve anything." I had an extreme lack of faith. After we sang "Families Can Be Together Forever" the Spirit was there during the hymn and the prayer. I have no idea what happened but two scriptures came to my mind which we shared. Then we testified of Eternal Families and asked the husband what he thought he should do. He then said, "Get married and get baptized." They will now be getting married and baptized as soon as possible.
One thing that I learned from this is that we can never ever lack faith. We cannot do anything without it. As is says in Moroni 7:39 "if we lack faith, we are not worthy to be counted in the church of Christ" (rough paraphrase). We need to have faith because without it, we will not be counted in His church. Not having faith as it says in Romans 14:23 is a sin. If we do anything without faith, it is in vain, so it is a sin. Although those scriptures are direct and a little bit painful, we cannot hope to achieve anything without faith.
Something that I have always liked is that we need to arm ourselves with that faith. My family just received a few key chain rings that I sent from Mexico. Some of them had historic sites and the one for my brother was a bottle opener too. The one for my dad ended up being a plain one with a boot and just said Mexico. One might think, "wow you gave something really special to your dad" with a lot of sarcasm. However, it means a lot because whenever I worked in the yard or dug holes, my dad always said that I had to wear my boots. Why? Because if I wore regular shoes, I would hurt my feet. I usually wore them because he made me, but one time when he was not home and I had to dig a large trench, I did not. What happened? My feet hurt the whole next day. With this I learned a physical lesson and also spiritual. If we do not dress ourselves with the right "boots" for the job, we will be hurting later. Likewise, if we do not arm ourselves with the adequate spiritual armor, we will not be able to make it spiritually through the rest of our lives. I am grateful for everything that my dad taught me and for teaching my this. Just like it says in Ephesians chapter 6, we need to "arm ourselves with all the armor of God." If we put on the right boots, we will still be tired after putting up with "all the fiery darts of the Devil," but we be able to fight the next day and the day after until we are at the side of God in Heaven.
So please learn the lesson if you already have not, and like my dad always told me, put on your spiritual boots every day to be able to make it through the next. I love you guys all very much, and I hope you have a great week.
Elder Andrews
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