Elder Chase Herrmann: 2/6/17

What’s goooood? My new companion, Elder Taggart, is sweet! We get along really well and every morning we wake up, run, and then go play football--I like him a lot!! He is a really hard worker and we are learning a lot together.

We have been teaching Katia (and her son Junior) like crazy and have been seeing such growth in them. She has such a strong testimony about the Book of Mormon and loves talking about it with us. Saturday night we were really hoping, "Yes, she’ll go to church and the week after that be baptized!" We were really excited because we thought that we were going to get a baptism in TAVIRA!!! We got to the lesson and she pulled a 180 degree turn on us. She told us that she will be stopping our lessons. My heart dropped and I was thinking in my head that this can’t be happening. She said that she believes it all but can’t get to the point to act. She loves us and said that we have done everything that we could do, but it is all up to her when she will take that first step with church. She said she just doesn’t feel comfortable with church right now. We pleaded and tried but she said that she was done with our lessons and that she’ll keep studying and when she receives an answer from God she will go to church right away. We walked out of the meeting and just sat on the bench and cried. We could literally see her testimony grow and see how much happier she was. We thought of all of the blessings that she could receive. We went to the church and Elder Taggart asked if we could say a prayer...we were on our knees in the chapel pouring out our hearts and we felt the spirit so strong. It was definitely a moment I will never forget. We were comforted. She has heard the message and invitation and someday will accept it. Even though we aren’t teaching her anymore I still have such a love for her and know she will be baptized someday!

So for the 9th week in a row, we didn’t have an investigator in church. It was kind of frustrating. I honestly don’t know what more we can do--praying, fasting, trying to find people, teaching, inviting. I know the Lord wants me to learn something from this...I don’t know what it is right now, but I’ll figure it out, just got to keep going strong!

Our recent convert, Vasco, told us this week that he smoked after 32 days of being clean. It was really sad when he told us. He was crying and crying because he thought he would never smoke again. But man, this is why I love the gospel, there is still hope! We told him to start again today, and now he is 2 days smoke free! I am so grateful for the atonement and for the ability to see it help people on my mission!

So with absolutely no where to go in our work, with no investigators, Elder Taggart and I made a plan to find someone. We said, “Okay, we are going to knock on 300 doors, and if none of them let us in, we will return to our house eat ice cream, cry a little and then return to knocking doors...(not literal cry but funny cry). When we started the challenge I thought, “Oh, one person will let us in out of 300.” Four hours passed and I was in our house eating a bowl of ice cream thinking, "Wow, can’t believe that happened!" So we decided to change our door approach...make a new unique approach every time. We did this one where Elder Taggart being tall would hold the Book of Mormon above the door so they couldn’t see it and I would say, "We are here to share a book from God." Then he would drop the book and it would land in my hands as if it dropped from heaven... the people laughed and it was better. We are working harder than ever. We will find some people this next week!

Today for p-day we and 6 more elders went to a beach and had a BBQ and played football. I love the p-days here in Portugal! It’s winter here so no one is on the beaches but it’s still like 75 degrees!

I learned this week the difference between obedience. Obedience because you SHOULD (need to) follow the rules to be blessed; and obedience because you WANT (desire) to follow the rules to be blessed. It seems subtle but there is a big difference in motivation between SHOULD and WANT. When we have the same “WILL” as our Heavenly Father everything goes more smoothly. For me this means I have to give up some of my wants and desires to align my will with his, but through this I can truly be happy.

I love you all so much!!! FICA BEMMMM

-Elder Herrmann