this week was good... but... YESTERDAY WAS AWESOME. So you all remember Seirgio??? So we FINALLY found him! yayayayaay. i will tell the craziness of the story now. :)
haha so yesterday as we are going to pick up some people for church we are kinda late... like always. But we really tried this time so it wasnt that bad. But we are literally almost running to this persons house who said they would go to church they just wanted us to pick them up. So we are two thrids of the way there when we see... who do you know... SEIRGIO. so i didnt write about him last week because we didnt find him... he was NO WHERE to be found. so it was a miracle to see him before church... but i was like "are you kidding me... right now? Right when we are so late" But we stopped... we had to. And we told him pretty forcefully that he HAD to be in his house at 7 o clock for us to pass by. We made some changes in the schedule so that we could pass by. he laughed a little but said ok. So them we get to church and are so super excited to teach him AT 7... well... being cabo verde... you know whats going to happen.
It turns out we see him at 6. But we had a super important lesson at 6 and told him that he needed to be in his house at 7 and he said ok. So we walk literally 3 steps over to our next appointment which was super close to where he was at and knock on the door. Well.. our super important lesson didnt want to talk at that time so we remarked with her. :( But then we got excited and realized we could talk to seirgio early. So we go over to where he was at... 3 steps ago and he is not there anymore. no where to be found. I have no idea how! it was weird.
So then we make our way to our alternative plan just praying that he will be there at 7. So one hour later at 7 we show up to his house. and guess what. Seirgio is not there. Ele nao ta! ugh.... so we are devastated. obviously. so we do some searching! he cant have gone far. we end up talking to a menos ativa and helping her see the importance of church. Then we make our way back to seirgios house and just the wife is there. LIKE ALWAYS. So we just say that we are going to have a lesson with her. We didnt really plan much but it is amazing how the spirit works. Sister kohlert shared some scriptures in mosiah 26 about the power of prayers of family members and invited irene to pray for seirgio that he can leave alcohol behind. We ended the lesson and right as we said amen... literally... SIERGIO walks in. he books it to his room but we saw him haaha. so we tell him he needs to come in there and we are going to talk to him. He then leaves and says he needs to go to the store... but we follow him and he finally agrees to sit down and talk to us. he likes to joke around a lot. haha but once we get back to the house... IRENE is GONE. What? it was literally 3 minutes after. So she is no where to be found. which is terrible because we cant teach a man without another women about 18 years. SOOOOO.... we pray pray pray in our hearts and tell seirgio he has to stay there. Luckily we had a member with us and we told him he can be the babysitter as we go. so we dont go very far because we know that weird things happen. And we ask if anyone has seen irene. finally someone says she went to buy something from the store really fast and and she will be back. So we wait outside the door. no one could go out or in to that house without our permission. hahah just kidding... kinda. PS... the stores are all super close that is why we waited.
So then finally irene comes down the street and we are able to start the lesson. I had to take a couple breaths and pray within my heart for the spirit really hard at that time. But we ended up having a great lesson on the word of wisdom! We used the plan of salvation to show him the importance of keeping the laws of god. He knows his drinking problme is really hurting his family and he knows he needs to change. So he committed to live it. now he has a reason. It is a commandment of god! So we made some plans and he suggested some ways as well and now for the follow up. This is going to a patience tester for me. But Preach my gospel gives some great ideas about how to overcome addictions and we are studying and using that. WE just have to show a lot of love. But fom last night i really thought about how even if he is a little crazy and has this problem, he is a child of god and together--as his sisters-- we are going to help him. The love we feel for people is incredible on the mission. And i truly love this family and cant wait to see them in the temple together someday because that is the lords goal. And they can do it! Because of the Atonement. So Irene has problems with coffee too so this will be a great thing for them both.
And i cant let them go through this alone. So you know what i did... I gave up something too. So here in cabo verde we have this amazing thing called bolacha! it means cookie... but they are super different than cookies. They are SOOOO good. So i eat them everyday all day... without fail. Well... i can see how maybe i am addicted to those things. They are like all i buy because they are super cheap and a simple sncak to have every day. with some peanut butter they are divine. BUT... i see how this is hard for sergio and a couple of our other investigators are having real problems with coffee so... I gave up bolachas!!!!! pray for me.
haha but i could see today as i did groceries that it will be hard but so worth it. Everytime i have the desire to eat a bolacha... because sister kohlert still eats them... i think of sergio and others that probably have the same desire to break the word of wisdome. but i cant make excuses i have to overcome. And they will to! So we are doing this together. :)
I love this work. i love you all. always read the scirptures. i have had a big testimony builder this week of how we can ready ANY passage of sciprture and the spirit can teach us exactly what we need to learn. I love you all. And i hope like Alma we will never tire of doing the work and keep enduring to the end :) He could not rest. Alma 43:1-2
Love Sister Johnson
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