Elder Colligan and I had a great week, full of hard work, laughs, and investigators finally committing to baptism! We are teaching an awesome family, and the dad is a member who has come back to activity with us and his 2 youngest daughters are planning on getting baptized tomorrow! They are super funny and love church. The branch has helped out tons in fellow shipping, and they have really received the teachings well. They help me with Guarani every visit too. They are awesome. Even their older sister who didn't really want to go to church, get baptized, etc went to church for the first time yesterday, and is hopefully going to get baptized in August. It has been a great miracle.
I have been study, practice, and working on my ability to speak Guaraní. It is really hard and confusing, and uses weird noises, but I have already seen a lot of progress. And when I speak in Guaraní instead of Spanish, the people are more interested and receptive to the teachings. I have gotten down the prayer pretty good, also basic contacts of the gospel. The members are helping me a lot as well. Keep praying for me to communicate well the message of the Restoration with my Paraguayan brothers and sisters!
We were literally in the middle of nowhere looking for a former investigator of past Elders, when we came across a lone house/farm, with about 40 bulls standing there. We decided to contact it, so I clapped at the gate. Right when I clapped, it triggered something in the cows, and they started to sprint, about 5 of them right at us. So we also turned and started to hurry away. I thought that for sure, we were not going to make it out alive, but we got lucky and beat them out of the path. It was an adventure.
We had been teaching a really cool guy. He has cooled off a little bit due to false information about the church and its origin. It has been really frustrating to see the eternal effect of rumors, lies, and false stories about the church. Just when he was about to be baptized, and was almost certain that the church was true, it all fell apart. I was reading in Mormon 8, and I decided that Moroni said it best in verses 13-22. He said that the records that he had written, and that his father Mormon had abridged would only come to pass in the latter-days by the power of God, and that the person called to do so (Joseph Smith) would be blessed by the Lord. It also warns all that seek to destroy the work (be it through actions, lies, theories, etc) is in danger to be hewn down and cast into the fire. Then in verse 22, "For the eternal purposes of the Lord shall roll on, until all his promises shall be fulfilled." It reminded me of one of my favorite quotes, by the Prophet Joseph Smith himself, "The Standard of Truth has been erected. No unhallowed hand can stop the work. Persecutions may rage, mobs may combine, armies may assemble, calumny may defame. But the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and dependent, till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear, until the purposes of God shall be accomplished and the Great Jehovah will say, `The work is done`". I know that it is true. Nobody but the Lord will ever be able to impede the work in which we have embarked. I love this work and I know it has been able to grow across the whole work only because it is a sacred, divine work of God.
Love you all! Pray for us!
Until next week,
Elder Babcock
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