Winning the fight! (And hitting his ONE YEAR mark!)

We are winning this fight!!!

 

It's true though! :) It's been a battle, but the frequency (of finding people?) is going up every week, and we found a ton of great potential investigators and less actives (members), and this next week we should have a lot of good stuff happen!

 

In terms of investigators, it's still kind of slow but-- Edgar came to church yesterday! He is making great steps, he just seems to have a doubt we can't figure out yet. Francisca set her baptism date for the end of July, so she has made a great step! We have another investigator named Adilson, who has been really closed to us, but in the last week he has really showed an interest and is starting to open up!

 

Other than that, this week we have been hit so many times with issues w/ the Bible. The BIBLE!!! People worship the Bible more than God! It's so bad here!!! They are so worried about little inconsequential details that they are losing their salvation over it!!!! 

 

Not to get to worked up but, we have found out how to avoid this. Don't fight!! Whatever you do, don't fight! You lose every time!! So we share our message, and ask them to pray, and give it all to the Spirit. If they fight the Spirit, it's a lot harder than us against them. It has been working pretty well! :) 

We are also training our ward leadership how to work! I feel like I am running this ward more than the Bishop is... let's just say I am learning how to run a ward pretty well! :) The Lord might have plan for that.... hope not but!

 

This week was still as rough as ever, but I feel we have turned the corner and can now see the light!

 

Everyone, I know that God loves us, and that Christ lives and this gospel is the only true gospel in the world. If you don't believe me, pray, because the Lord will show you. I know that in our weakest moments the Lord lifts us up. He proved it this week. I had a night where I sat down in pure frustration and just prayed. I prayed so hard that the Lord would give us something. Nothing came instantly, but things are starting to happen! I love you all wish you the best!

Family, if you could send me more pictures of my friends, that would be great! Either pull them off facebook, or out of the files we already have, I would like that! I am happy and growing and am loving my mission!!!! :) See ya in 1 ;)

 

Love, Elder Naylor

Feeling for missionaries in other missions...

Hey All! I really don't have much to say this week, other than I am sorry for elders (and sisters) that don't ever teach!!!! I am now feeling your pain.

 

We had a day where we visited 17 of our investigators, and they all were not home or had some lame excuse of why we could not talk with them. We found ourselves, a few times, just asking why is this not working? What does the Lord want us to do?

 

The only positive thing about this week is that through all of this hard work, I am learning a lot about God! I have had my faith stretched to great lengths. But its growing! We are learning how to really teach with power, and my prayers have gotten a lot better.

 

The main problem is, the people here just forget, or are lazy, and won't do anything. We had one investigator who was great! He was doing everything (reading, praying) and working towards a baptism date. Sunday he didn't show up, when all week he said he would. Then when we saw him later that day. We tried talking to him, but he completely ignored us...

 

So we are hoping for a better week this week, and we have some plans that should be good!

 

Love y'all,

Elder Naylor

3 Baptism Dates!

Hey everybody! This week was really, really slow. I don't have much to say, other than in my DL meeting in Praia, we learned a ton of stuff, and a lot of it was about setting goals and following up on them. We put all these things into practice and it made our week better, and we now have a really good vision of what we want to get done in our area!

Mom, I will get to see my current mission president before he leaves. He is doing interviews this week here on Fogo. That will be nice!! He is a great man and has influenced my life. I won't be surprised if he is called to be a Seventy(priesthood leadership) some day, not even a little. I already know the new mission president. He was serving here with his wife as couple missionary companionship when I got in, and he will be just as good!! No doubt in my mind! 

We did set 3 baptism dates! Two of them are in one family and they are golden!! Usually the doubt of being baptized the right away after having been baptized in a different religion is a huge problem here. But this time when he asked about it, I just said, "The scripture that says, 'one Lord, one faith, one baptism'," means one TRUE baptism (proper authority, proper manner, proper age). He responded w/ "Oh...ok!"  When we taught about the Book of Mormon, he said, "I have heard of this book, and read it a few times, but I don't have my own." We put one in his hands. It took him a few seconds to realize that it was for him to keep, but when he did, a huge smile came across his face!! 

Sunday was a major hard day... We had all these people planning to come to church. We were going to pick them up and walk to church in the morning, and we had members ready to help too, but nothing worked... No one came. The ones we visited later had excuses like "I was lazy," or "I didn't want to (when doing completely nothing!)." I was very disappointed. We did have a great meeting with our "soon to be" bishop and we made a bunch of plans for the next two weeks so that a ton of great things are going to happen!!! 

That's all for this week. The work is slow and a little frustrating, but we are starting to see some things fall into place! Oh, and freak thing! I saw a friend from high school here this week!!! When I was coming back from my meeting, she was in the airport! Super cool! Love you all!

Elder Naylor 

Friend from High School

Ice Cream

How we do Birthdays

No Summer Vacay on the mission... :)

Well, this week was hard... To start we had a hard time with water and power.. and you know that picture I sent washing clothes in the bucket? Yeah, that was a joke, but I had to do a load like that this week... My hands were the biggest raisins ever. Also, the work was kind of kicking our butts... Basically what has happened is we have lost all of our investigators, or they all have really bad excuses, or they are less active and are happy to break the commandments so long as they go to America... It feels like there is no winning here, but my comp and I are determined to fix that this week! 

Last Saturday my comp and I gave a training at zone meeting! It was super good and I felt it was helpful! :) Also, we go to Praia this week for a DL meeting! It kind of hurts us because we don't get back to our area until Wednesday, but it will be cool and a lot of fun! 

The only real thing that happened this week is that we are working with a member who is trying to come back but is kind of lazy and drunk a lot... His name is Bruno and I have come to love this guy so much!! This week he walked up to us and he was so drunk, the flashlight he had in his hands was so cool to him, he kept staring into the light... but during this he said, "I don't have god in my life" and then we talked as best we could with him in the road and said we would pass by later. Also, a week earlier he said to me "I have never had an elder care about me so much" and it was right then when I said I would rescue this guy!! So on Sunday we were going to church and he was sitting outside of his uncle's house and he was just in shorts and a t shirt. He was making all these excuses and I even offered to switch clothes with him (he was saying he wasn't dressed right and we were in our suits) and after like 20 min of talking and excuses he said he would come to the last hour. So we trusted him and left. And he showed up!!!!! I was so happy! We are making slow little steps but I am so happy for him!! 

That's all folks!! ;) fica fixe

Elder Naylor