Trying harder and miracles

At the start of this week I wasn't having the best time. Maybe you haven't noticed but I haven't had a baptism in 10 months....I know I'm not here to baptize, I'm here to serve haha but after 10 months of working my hardest and still not having a baptism I couldn't take it anymore. We were gonna baptize in Durango haha but the week before my 2 converts were baptized I got transfered (they still got baptized so its all good). Hmo Fransisco in Tlahualilo will be baptized in 2 weeks (I'm so happy for him he's gonna be a great leader in the church one day) and I won't get to be there. I look around and I see elderes that don't work at all, that are super disobedient, that hate and can't speak spanish that will baptize every transfer. I get to my area here in Chavez and the elders before me didn't really do a whole lot, so we had no one. Our mission president is focusing a lot on baptism, in trainings, in interviews, the focus is baptism...and I haven't baptized. He recieves revelation for the mission, he knows our potential in the mission, and our potential is to be baptizing every week. So I said a prayer, I promised God I would hold nothing back, I would do better, there are days when I don't really try my hardest, I'm always pretty obedient to the letter of the law but so often I lack the spirit of it. So often I'm negative, sarcastic, whiney, haha I'm not here to have a good time, I'm here because the field is white and ready for the harvest. I promised God I would be nicer to my companion (haha he's a hard companion)

And I did, I gave it my all this week, I talked to everybody, Everybody, I tried extra hard with my companion, from the time the sun comes up til the minute it's time to call it a day I talked to everyone. and God really did give us miracles. In one week we found 4 families that are pure gold. I begged God to give us the Spirit more in lessons and boom we had every lesson with a really strong Spirit and for the first time since I got here 4 weeks ago we had an investigator with a baptimal date show up to church.

But last week was nothing. This week I will do better than I did, I have finally really unlocked the secret to losing myself here, I really did lose myself last week, this week I'm going to do it again, but more.

With all I did this week I also have learned a very important lesson lately that I'd like to share especially with Matt. Very few things will drive the Spirit away in the mission like number 1 focusing on numbers and number 2 criticizing your companion, even in your mind.

They both are signs of pride and if you are prideful God will leave you to yourself. There have been weeks when I have tried to have lessons just to put a stupid number on the charts, I've rushed through lessons just so we could squeeze 2 bad lessons into the time when we could have had 1 good one.

Matt, the number is the result, not the purpose nor the focus. Do not focus on the numbers, because when we focus on numbers then we don't have converts, when we focus on the numbers we might have a ton of lessons, but in the end it still ends with no conversion, neither for you nor for your investigators. Also don't criticize your companion even in your mind, you won't have the spirit, so you won't have a purpose.