Hay cambios!!!!!!

Querido familia 

How are you all doing? I am doing fine. well it is official I am leaving.  Where and what I will be doing I don’t know exactly I could just be going to a different zone will see what happens tomorrow but it has been great being here in Amatitlan I learn something new every area I get and I have learned a lot here in Amatitlan that I know will be helping me in the future.  

 

I am doing better now thanks don’t have to worry about me. 

But this week has been really great we had a miracle baptism of this other lady named Elvia she is older to ha-ha I never was much for baptizing older people but here I am doing it a lot but it’s great to see these people no matter how much time they got being willing to change their lives and commit themselves. It was a miracle though with her we haven’t been able to see her for over a month and then one day we found her we visited with her and we challenged her to be baptized and she accepted and was baptized this last Sunday!!! We as a mission have changed a lot we now challenge people to be baptized on the first visit and it is really working a lot of people are just simply waiting for the invitation to change you just have to have the sweet boldness and courage to invite them to do it. 

Today I did my last zone training here in Amatitlan and we focused a lot on Jacob 5 which talks about the vinyard right everybody knows this parable but as we talked about it we focused on the inspired questions that God asks what more could I have done more for my vinyard and who has corrupted it and why did it get corrupted? And we asked these questions to the missionaries and we talked about how the vinyard doesn’t have to be the area it doesn’t have to be the people it could just be us and our hearts. Satan doesn’t have to corrupt the area or the people he just has to corrupt the worker (missionary) so that the vinyard doesn’t grow. We talked about a lot how we need to stay focus on the savior and we read in 2 Nephi 25:25 and focused on where it says that we are alive in Christ and we asked what does that mean to you? To be alive in Christ? We talked about how Satan is really attacking this zone because we are the biggest and most successful but also the most with potential and there are plans to divide the stake so that it is two and because of that Satan is throwing some punches to stop us. I started to think  a little bit how we really are a little bit like rocky ha-ha if you pay attention he had all of his success because he kept remembering what his trainer taught him and it gave him the strength to get back up when he was down. We also have a trainer and master and if we remember him he will pick us back up and tell us to keep throwing the punches and get in there and give it your all!! That’s how I feel we are alive in Christ because he gives us the breath and strength we need to get up and keep throwing the punches even when we are so tired we can barely stand like rocky. 

I like a lot what mom told me that God takes you and makes you better then you really are he makes the things you do better you take rocky who was a bum and really was a nobody and he goes up against the champ of the world and gives him a run for his money and everybody just sits there shocked wondering how does he do it. I have seen missionaries that I really didn’t think could do much and they should me I was dead wrong. These type of missionaries have something in come they put their trust more in God there trainer more in themselves and that’s what makes them so successful I have seen it in myself going to areas I really didn’t think I would have success but I would just keeping going along just taking the hits and giving it a little till at the end we had success and I can only look back and realize that the whole time I had someone holding me up and not letting me stay on the ground to long and just telling me to get back in there and fight. That to me is what it means to be alive in Christ. And I love the scripture in Samuel 1 Samuel 16; 7 that talks about how God only looks upon the hearts of man not in their stature or looks or you could say in their positions or any of that stuff and that is what I try to look for in the missionaries and in my investigators. 

But I love you all I’ll tell you where I am and what is going on the next week!!

 

Elder Toma 

Guatemala Ciudad Central Mission