First off, I would like to
give a big birthday shout out to my mom and my grandma who have the same
birthday as me—Thursday the 15th! I can’t believe I will be turning 19 this
week!! I kind of want to stay 18 here on my mission since I have had so many amazing
experiences, but excited to see what 19 has to offer!!!
This week we’ve had
some hard stuff happen. We’ve been
teaching this little girl, Ines, but her father has not been going to church so
he hasn’t received the priesthood to baptize her. Also before she gets baptized
she wants to do the first communion (a catholic rite where they take the sacrament
for the first time at 10 years of age). It’s a cultural thing here and if you don’t
you’re an outcast. So now we have a long wait before she can get baptized. Also,
our investigator Rodrigo is progressing like crazy! He is ready for it all
except he doesn’t know about living the law of chastity and is scared to get baptized
in case he isn’t able to follow through... so we have some work to do! And our "golden investigators" were
doing great. We met with Natalia 3 times
this week and she brought a friend to one of our lessons, already doing
missionary work! She and her son were making such great progress and wanted to
be baptized until Friday....Friday we were knocking on doors in the
rain and it was like a movie scene, I felt this ring in my pocket and looked at
my phone and it was Natalia and João saying that they didn’t want anything to
do with us or our religion. We called right away and she kept saying, "But
I know the name of God is Jehovah so your church can’t be true." We think the Jehovah Witnesses were talking to
them and tried to explain but she wouldn’t listen. She said that we can talk
today with her, but she already said that we won’t convince her. It’s sad when
things happen like this. But it’s all great, we trust the will of God. We
fasted this week on Friday and our theme was accepting the will of God
and then this happened. So right now we will just walk in faith knowing that
what happens really is the will of God.
This understanding has helped me so much on my mission. Many times we can’t
control things in our lives.... things just happen and we need to have faith
and follow the will of God because really HE KNOWS BETTER!!! I wish I would
have known this before my mission--it would have saved me a lot of frustration.
I had a split with the
elders on the other side of the island.
Elder van Wagenen went with my comp and I went with a relatively new
Elder McKee. He is a great missionary
and we were working really hard and at the end of the day he looked at me and
said, “Elder, how are you having so much fun when we work? How do you find
happiness when you are getting rejected 24/7?” I told him that if you are not
having fun on the mission then you are doing something wrong. We can have
happiness when we focus on the things we can control and not worry about the
things we can’t control. Also, it is
important to be able to laugh at yourself!
That day we had a lot of success and a great time! I love this
island...there are days we are knocking doors and I am just like woahhhhhh this
is so sick!!! And I have to take a picture because this place is paradise!
The spiritual thing I
studied and learned this week was the importance of taking on the name of Christ!
It’s so much more then when we get baptized.
Every week when we take the sacrament we promise our Father that we will
be an example to everyone just like Christ was and that we will do what Christ
would do. I am so grateful for the covenants I made on the day of my baptism
and those I make every week when I take the sacrament—taking on the name of Christ.
The temporal thing I learned was--if you want to lose a lot of weight just move
to a humid place. This island is so
humid I feel like I am swimming everyday just by walking!
I love you all and the
next time you hear from me I’ll be Elder Herrmann Version 1.9!!!!
-Elder Herrmann
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