"The Lord’s way is not to sit at the side of the stream and wait for the water to pass before we cross. It is to come together, roll up our sleeves, go to work, and build a bridge or a boat to cross the waters of our challenges."

I don´t have a lot of time to write this week because I have been working on my college essays, but this was a great week!!!!

On Friday we had a specialized training with President Ferrin and the assistants. I really enjoyed the training and it gave me motivation to work harder than I have ever worked before!!! When we left I started talking to like EVERYONE in sight. It was a really rewarding day. 

On Sunday was the baptism of Gabriel. He was so HAPPY afterwards :) It has been super awesome to see the change that he has made in his life. Next step... Endure to the End 

We are currently increasing the number of people that we teach, and had a good number of investigators at church so that was really rewarding to see. I hope that this week is a good week for all of you!!!!!!!!!!

The Pursuit of Happiness

This week was not at all what I was expecting it to be. But it ended up being a pretty good week. 

We were in high gear doing TONS of street contacts. Doing all we could do find new investigators. But yeah that didn´t work out too well. We only got two new investigators out of the 50 contacts that we did. 

But, we worked all week with Alicia (the daughter of the couple who is going to be married next month to be baptized) and she got baptized yesterday. She is so AWESOME. She was so excited to be baptized, and everytime she prays she prays that her parents can get married soon so that they can get baptized too!!! I am SUPER excited to plan a wedding :) Should be happening in about December. I might not get to be there for Annika´s wedding, but at least I´ll get to see a wedding. 

We have also been working with Gabriel. Gabriel is the son of a recent convert, Janai. He never was very interested with meeting with the sisters and he just likes playing soccer on the street and getting into trouble. But when I saw him, I was like. We need to teach him!!!! So me and my companion started slowly trying to gain his trust and BAM. Before he knew it he was taking the discussions. And he is super awesome. His biggest concern right now is HAPPINESS. He wanted to know how he could be HAPPIER. We have been making that a key point in all the lessons that we teach him. For the first week we taught him, everytime we extended an invitation he wouldn´t give firm answers. It was always ``maybe i´ll go to church on sunday``  ``Let´s see if I remember to say a prayer tonight``. But when we taught him on saturday he had a great bonding moment with his mom. And talked about the change that he had seen in her after her baptism. She stopped saying swear words, stopped drinking, stopped screaming at him, stopped beating him. And he said ``she does look a lot happier`` This was like the most rewarding thing I have ever seen. It made me think..... man THE GOSPEL TRULY DOES BLESS FAMILIES!!!!!!! And after the lesson we invited him to be baptized and he said YES :) Then he went to church on sunday and saw the baptism of Alicia and afterwards he came up to us and said ``Eu decidi, eu vou me batizar domingo que vem`` I have decided to be baptized next sunday!!!! WOOHOOOOOOO. It made me soooo happy to see him happy and to see him respond with such a firm answer. 

What I have been learning with Gabriel is that the only way to find true happiness is through the gospel of Jesus Christ. There is no other way. Heavenly Father wants to see us happy. He wants to see us on the right path to eternal life because he loves us!!!!!! It reminds me of the tree of life. The fruit is what is true happiness. 

10 And it came to pass that I beheld a ^atree, whose ^bfruit was desirable to make one ^chappy.

And how can we get to the tree of life?!?!!? Following the iron rod which is the word of god!!!!! When we follow the commandments and live the gospel we are going to be happy regardless of what is happening in our lives because we will have hope that we will be blessed and that Heavenly Father will fix the bad things that are happening.  

Love you all!!!!

"The more we devote ourselves to the pursuit of holiness and happiness, the less likely we will be on a path to regrets. The more we rely on the Savior’s grace, the more we will feel that we are on the track our Father in Heaven has intended for us." Dieter F. Uchtdorf