The Lord works in mysterious ways

Jenson and Elder Vega 2.0 

Dear All,

Guys Mexicali is nuts. In so many ways.

I really don't even know where to start. We found 21 new people to teach this week. I have no idea how we did it. I am so tired. My feet hurt. I broke a pair of shoes. The good thing is that I didn't touch a bike this week thank goodness.

So on Monday when we started to work we went to look for a contact that we had done about a week ago. We get to the house and we start hearing some super loud rock music. We get closer and it's Avenged Sevenfold, a band that I liked for a while. So we knock on the door and this stereotype skater dude came out, gagues lip ring, everything. We start talking to him, he lets us in, and then he starts telling asking us some super weird questions about how to cast out demons and stuff cause there's a demon that lives in that house and as much as he wants it to mess with him it never does so he's mad at the demon and wants to get rid of it. Stuff like that. But anyway we taught the Plan of Salvation and set a baptismal date. So yeah the Lord works in mysterious ways.

On Tuesday we had our conference with the President, and it was super cool. It was awesome. We left super excited and had another way cool experience in the taxi on the way home. We get in the taxi and contacted the dude driving, he tells us that he believes in God but doesn't see why we have to go to a church to show faith. So we started asking him questions, and all of the sudden a question came to my head. And as I was about to say it, my companion beat me to it. The exact question that I was about to ask. If that's not the Spirit I don't know what is. Anyway this dude gets quiet, and the starts breathing really weird. Honestly the first thing that came to my head was that part from the book Hatchet when he's in the plane and all of the sudden the pilot has a heart attack. I thought the dude was dying. Turns out he was crying. Thank goodness (I think?). Then he tells us how he started believing in God. Then he tells us that he's never told anyone that story ever, except his wife. We take turns bearing testimony of the Plan of Salvation, get his address and phone number, and then he tells us that he saw us far away, and in that moment something told him that we were going to get into his taxi, and that now he knew why. It was super cool.

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday were about the same, we just walked A TON, I broke a pair of shoes (but don't worry I have an extra pair that a sister in my ward gave me), and we found a bunch of new people to teach.

Saturday was a pretty alarming day. For having spent so much time in lessons where we were just knocking doors and teaching who we found, we neglected a little bit our baptismal dates. We found out that several weren't going to go to church on Sunday. So we were kind of worried.

But then Sunday was pretty good. Besides having very few investigators in church, we had a good day. We were able to find a reference from a family that we had taught a week ago but hadn't been able to find the whole week. So we taught him, and he told us that, of all the churches he had ever gone to, none of them even came close to what we had, which he described simply enough as "la verdad de todo". It was pretty powerful.

I was listening to a talk from Elder Holland the other day and he quoted a scripture that is super cool. It's Ether 12:37, made famous because it's the scripture that Hyrum read to Joeseph just before their martyrdom. 'Thou hast been faithful; therefore thou shalt me made strong...even unto the sitting down in the place with which I have prepared for you in the mansions of my Father." But what I love about this scripture is what comes just before that. Moroni prays that the Gentiles (us) will have charity and not make fun of his words, and the Lord pretty much sets him straight, like "Look, none of that matters. Just be you, do what you do, and if you do it well I'll take care of everything. Those other people have nothing to do with what you do, if you're doing it for me." It's a powerful lesson for all of us. When we are rejected or cast out and we think what am I doing wrong or how can I make these people see what I can really do, the Lord sets us straight. Just be you, do it well, and the Lord takes care of the rest. "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear"

Les quiero mucho,

Elder Rawlings

Another pic of Jenson and his Companion Elder Vega