Buying My First Cigarette

Wow this is one of my favorite and most blessed weeks on my mission! There were so many awesome moments where I just knew that God was watching over both me and all of His children in this area. Don't want to take up too much of your time, so I'm just going to keep things short and simple. But first, let's hear a quick spiritual thought...

Matthew 11

29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 

30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

Christ invites us to take upon us His yoke. But what does that even mean?

President Howard W. Hunter puts it this way, "The yoke was a device … that allowed the strength of a second animal to be linked and coupled with the effort of a single animal, sharing and reducing the heavy labor of the [task in hand]. A burden that was overwhelming or perhaps impossible for one to bear could be equitably and comfortably borne by two bound together with a common yoke."

So how do we yoke or bind ourselves to the Savior? 

Through making and keeping sacred convenants, like baptism, we are yoked to our Savior Jesus Christ. The Savior is inviting each a everyone of us to share His yoke, have your burden lightened, and receive the strength and healing necessary to face life's obstacles. Through baptism, we are literally tying ourselves to Christ forever. 

This week we had the opportunity to see some of God's children make sacred covenants with Him, taking upon themselves the yoke of Christ. On Saturday, we had the baptisms of Rafael, Nayra, Vitoria, and Zelia! Each one of them was a giant miracle, and they each went through so much to be baptized! 

Our recently baptized friend, Micael, continues to grow as a disciple of Jesus Christ. This week he read the entire missionary handbook (Preach my Gospel) to help us more in our lessons. He also agreed to do visits every single day with us this week. On Wednesday, I had the opportunity to sit down and talk with Micael, and after many weeks of pray and fast, he told me that he will serve a mission! I'm actually super happy! God is so good!

This week I had one of those Nephi killing Laban moments. (doing something not so good for a righteous cause). Rafael was struggling with the goals that we made with him for him to stop smoking. So after a little bit of pondering, I decided to buy all of his cigarettes off of him. Don't worry, I didn't smoke any of them, but neither did he! And now he'll never smoke another cigarette for the rest of his life!

I was suppose to give a talk yesterday in church about missionary work! I was actually super hype to give this talk, especially because it's actually been so long since a missionary has spoken in this ward. I was the last of three speakers, and when it was my turn to speak, there were only five minutes remaining in the meeting. So bishop whispers in my ear, you're going to give a five minute talk today, and next week you'll give your full talk. That's exactly what I didn't want to hear. The thing was, I had absolutely no clue what to say. I didn't want to have to give part of my talk and prepare it again, so for the first time in my life, I got to the pulpit with absoloutely nothing in my brain. But God prevailed, and I'll still hyped for my talk next week. 

That's about it for this email. This week we are going to have a member of the 70 (church leader) come to our mission and speak to us! I'm super excited to learn from him! I love you all and hope that you all have an amazing week!

Elder Ware