Boom!
Well, let me tell you that this week was one of the fastest weeks that I can remember on my entire mission. Wow, I cannot believe that I am writing you again. Stupid fast.
So, we WORKED OUR TAILS off this week. Seriously, we taught over 80 lessons this week! Are you kidding me? We are just really pushing ourselves to give it our all. Both of us are at the end of our mission, so we are doing everything possible to help others and we have been so blessed with the essential help of the wonderful members of this church! Our ward mission leader, Irmão Frank, is just giving it everything he has got to be able to help us do the work. We are so lucky to have him on our side.
So, this week was super hard though. We tried so hard but it felt like everything was against us. We have amazing people to teach but everything possible that could go wrong to tempt someone or to dissuade someone from learning with us and studying about the gospel, yea, everything of that nature happened this week with our investigators. We are teaching tons of people so we get to see a little of everything. Men who cheat on their wives and boys who are addicted to drugs. If you do not keep yourself thinking about the amazing work it could be really easy to get yourself down. I will admit, I did get down a bit because we are doing EVERYTHING in our power and in the end, it is not our choice. People choose to accept our help or not. We just preach with the Lords spirit to bring them to feel the truth. And to that end, I can say I feel a wonderful spirit in all of the lessons we teach. I feel the Lord on our side even if sometimes it seems like everything is against us. So for that, I thank the Lord every night when I pray.
Elder Drake and I are having a blast. Oh, how we joke around and just are 2 kids on the street. I do not think there are two Elder who quote more movies, make more jokes, and laugh as hard as we do every day. A few days ago he smiled and looked at me and said very slowly..."beef enchilada" to which I almost cried laughing and said "never has two words made me so trunky!" On Saturday we were sitting on the street when a little puppy came up to me. I pet him and he was super cute. So I turned to Elder Drake and said "You know, I would never punch a puppy in the face." Oh, Elder Drake died laughing for about 10 minutes straight. We have fun!
A young man by the name of Lucas was baptized this week. His older brother is a member and he is 17 years old. Really, before we met him, he never liked the church and had passed through many problems in his life. Drugs, police, gangs, etc. He has the scars to prove it. HOWEVER, he started coming to soccer at the church and he really liked talking with us. So we taught him the gospel and last week he came up to Elder Drake and said "what do I do to get baptized and be a missionary?" WOW! So we continued to try to meet with him but it was really hard because he lives so far away. Anyways, he was baptized and he asked me to do it, saying "you should do it, my life was changed because of you." I was touched. The first time I had seen him, I saw a punk. This Sunday he came to church in a button up shirt, smiling and just happy as could be. He sat with me at church and I confirmed him a member of the church. What a great story. I am grateful for these moments. I work for these moments. I pray, and sweat, and cry, and bleed, and work, and try, and fail, and pray again, all for THESE moments. What a blessing to feel such a love for another.
Well, if you ever wanted to know what motivates a 20 year old kid from urban northwest USA to live in the streets of the amazon, now you know. Its for the people and for God. It is for love and for feeling the spirit in the lives of others and in mine. Its for the work and the glory of my Lord. I am so blessed and privileged to give this work. I do not want anything else more than to do this.
eu vos amo
Elder Asa Laws
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