Hot Cakes!

Dear all,

First of all, desayunamos con una hermana del barrio. Hicimos hot cakes. Oh pancakes how I have missed you. This is a picture of the wonderful creation that I made.

​Pancake with peanut butter, apple, and cajeta (caramel). It was delicious. 
And after I took the picture I wanted to make a joke about instagram, buuuut, I didn't think it would translate. 

This is the sweet sister with whom we spent the day. 

Now that we got that out of the way, I want to share with all of you what I learned yesterday studying. Maybe first that Sunday afternoons are not the most prime times to study. But secondly that the message in the August Liahona by Dennis C. Gaunt, "Act Upon This Land As If For Years" is a masterpiece. I read it for the first time yesterday, and there is so much good stuff! He mentions that we should not wait around for our seemingly unpleasant, inconvenient, or temporary circumstances to change. We must instead look for opportunities for spiritual growth. I can't even begin to tell you the wealth of knowledge and testimony that I gained from this article. Please read it if you haven't already, and if you have read it, read it again.

This week we visited two investigators, Juan Carlos and Janeth. They are a young couple with two babies. They are very receptive to the gospel, and they are progressing very well. They ask questions when we teach, they read the things we leave them, and they pray and ask God if this is the path their family should take. I have high hopes for them. We had a great lesson on Saturday night about the Plan of Salvation, and they were very excited to be able to go to church the following day. We arranged everything so that a member could stop by and take them to la capilla. On Sunday we arrived and were anxiously waiting to see them walk in the door and have the best experience of their life! We waited. And waited. And waited. The meeting started and shortly after the member that was going to bring the family entered and told us that they weren't ready when he passed by, but that they were coming. So we hoped, prayed, and waited some more. And the chiste es que nunca llegaron. They didn't come.

The moral of the story is that people have agency. Sometimes you do a lot of things and you just don't see the results. But does this mean that you have failed? Does this mean that they are never going to progress? No. The Lord works on His own timetable. Our deber, or our responsibility is to share the gospel and work as hard as we can to live what we know. "He that thrusteth in his sickle with his might, the same layeth up in store, that he perisheth not, but bringeth salvation to HIS soul" (See Doctrine and Covenants 4. It's a great section). We work hard and we have "faith, hope, charity and love, with an eye single to the glory of God" and we do all that is within our power, that "we might be the means of saving some", as Ammon and his brethren. But each individual has the choice to accept or reject the restored gospel, and we can't make them progress any faster than is prudent for the Lord.

Your job is to work, and you will bring salvation to your own soul.

Never give up hope. For every person that doesn't come to church, for every person that doesn't want to listen to the missionaries, for every person that tells you "no", you're one step closer to the one that will say "yes".

Hermana Cheever :)