The names of all members and investigators have been changed.
So this week has just been wonderful! I'm going to just start out with the basic idea of my talk that I gave in sacrament meeting this Sunday on Repentance. It was way too much fun studying up on my old notes and really searching the scriptures :)
"A certain man had two sons"
Yeah that's how I started out my talk. No intro to who I was or even the subject. I then read the parable of the prodigal son (see Luke 15:11-24) and likened it to us all that we are all out of our Father's presence but that we can all return. Then I taught about the Law of Justice that requires payment for every error and sin (Alma 42:14) but thankfully we have our Savior Jesus Christ (Alma 42:15) and because of him we can receive Mercy as we repent (Alma 42:13).
But what is repentance? Simple stated it is turning away from the bad and turning towards our Heavenly Father. To do so we must recognize we have sinned or done something against God's will, then we stop sinning, we confess to God, we repair what we can, and then we recommit to keep the commandments and follow Christ. But the most important part is that we acknowledge that it is thanks to Christ and his Atonement that we can repent.
Repentance isn't something we only need every once in a while. We must make it a pattern of living in doing it everyday. Then every week we can partake of the sacrament to sanctify us by his Spirit.
This Sunday the Church has released a video for Easter all about the Atonement and Resurrection of our Savior. It is titled Hallelujah. I invite all of you to go watch it, right down what it makes you want to do and then share it with others. I promise that you will feel the Spirit as you do so and that you will appreciate more his sacrifice for you.
3 Nephi 9:21-22
Behold, I have come unto the world to bring redemption unto the world, to save the world from sin.
Therefore, whoso repenteth and cometh unto me as a little child, him will I receive, for of such is the kingdom of God. Behold, for such I have laid down my life, and have taken it up again; therefore repent, and come unto me ye ends of the earth, and be saved.
It is through repenting that Christ can heal us. :)
Monday the 7th:
We got to make a bunch of pass bys that afternoon and evening. That evening we also got to teach Sr. Mingione but sadly she hadn't read at all the week before. We're not sure how much more we can do for her but we're trying hard to help her! She really has a great testimony of the restored gospel but it's hard for her to put it into practice.
Tuesday the 8th:
We got to go to the temple and finally do a session. It had been 19 months since I had done an endowment session. It was so wonderful!!! And then afterward we got to do an hour of initiatories in English at first but then mostly French. Amazing! :D I came out feeling so energized! :D
We then took care of our preparation day needs such as groceries and laundry. We also stopped by Bureau en Gros (Staples) and got some supplies. Elder Barreiro got a matching study journal like mine. It's fun to see my influence rub off on him in a good way :) Then we also got haircuts from the girlfriend of Severin who we met last week. She hooked us up with some sweet looking cuts :) We felt it only appropriate to then do a photoshoot... Hehe :)
 |
| Before hair cut pictures... yeah super long |
 |
| So we were feeling pretty fresh |
 |
| so we had a little photo shoot... |
 |
| (Thanks for the tripod Dad ;) |
That evening we had ward council and Fr. Lavene shook things up a little bit to get going in the right direction on somethings but I was very impressed with them. We used our progress records as the agenda so the entire time we were talking about people and not just general things :) The members are really getting involved! :D
Wednesday the 9th:
We got going early down to Montreal for our Zone Training Meeting. It was wonderful! Sister Patrick started it off by doing a companionship inventory exercise with us. We got two post it notes and on one we wrote down ways we show our love and concern for our companion and the other how we feel our companion shows love and concern for us. Then we compared and it was so cool to see how much our lists lined up! (Sister Patrick also said that this is a great activity for functioning couples... :) ) Then President focused on Christlike Attributes and the other trainings were on the mission training plan. It was awesome :)
Afterward, I started an exchange with Elder Pyron. We stopped by a little asian resto where he knew the people really well and we got lunch on the house! :D It was fun catching up with him and also driving home with the windows down because it was 16 degrees outside! :D Back at the apartment we did some studies before dinnertime. But while doing so we both got calls from the mission office... "Hi Elder Brooks, so will your parents be picking you up at the end of your mission? No, ok so which airport will you be flying into?" Yup I got what we call the "Death Call". Pretty humbling experience. But that evening we got out and about passing by people. We also got to teach Marisela that night about the importance of scripture studies :)
 |
| Me and Elder Pyron from our exchange |
Thursday the 10th:
So after studies that morning the Joliette Elders left. We did our weekly planning during which we got a call from Fr. Lavene telling us to give a less-active a call to set something up because he's ready to meet with us. Too cool! So we did and it was awesome! After planning the Terrebonne Elders showed up and we started an exchange with them. I was with Elder Mecham who was trained by Elder Soll. It was pretty fun sharing stories about him haha :) But before leaving our building we passed by Aliane to see how she was doing. She shared with us that she read from the Book of Mormon some and then she felt inspired to turn everything off and pray. She ended up praying for 30-45 minutes and afterward she just felt emptied of all worries and cares and had peace and joy put into her. Amazing! :D She's so ready! Then we got to teach the Losier family. It was a little rough but they're moving forward little by little. They just have a tendency to go off on random tangents and then the lesson gets really sidetracked unfortunately. But we found some things that interest them a lot so we'll focus on those :)
Friday the 11th:
That evening, Elder Barreiro and I got to visit the Bentancurs with Fr. Lavene. sadly Fr. Bentancur was sleeping but we had a great lesson with the rest of the family. We were pretty bold in helping them understand they need to read and pray everyday and then come to church too. We set up a good plan with them to follow up everyday to help them do that :) They said they would come to church again! We were praying hard!
Saturday the 12th:
We got to teach Aliane for the second time. We had Fr. Daron with us who was perfect. We followed up on how she's doing which is super good and then we focused on receiving an answer to her prayers about the Book of Mormon and the Restored Church. It was wonderful. She is so sincere! We had something of a testimony meeting and as I bore my testimony of how I came to know the Book of Mormon is true I saw that she felt the Spirit in her eyes. It was wonderful :) She just nodded and said it was true. We then invited her to be baptized on April 9th and she accepted! We're so stoked! :D And then we kneeled down and she said the closing prayer again :D
After that we visited Marceline and Fr. Bienvenue where we taught the Plan of Salvation. She was all smiles and she's happier than ever before! :D She's still on track for April 16th! :)
We had a little time left but not enough to go knocking really so we grabbed some ice cream at Chocolat Favoris. It'd been a while but it's so good :) Lots of people there too ;)
 |
| Elder Barreiro's first Chocolat Favoris |
We also had transfer calls and we're both sticking around but Elder Mecham and Sister Beaumont are leaving. They'll be missed!
Sunday the 13th:
Nothing from the Bentancurs :( Keep praying for them! Satan's got them pretty strong right now but we're stronger with Christ! Church was just wonderful though. Sister Beaumont spoke first using one of those sideways poems with Jesus Christ having a word for every letter. Super powerful. It definitely laid out the doctrine. Then Sister Martin spoke about Grace and how we are saved. After the intermediate hymn I was up and I got to lay down the application of Repentance. It was a very inspiring sacrament meeting :) I felt like I had done a good amount of preparation and so then I was really led by the Spirit when I got up to speak :) It touched a lot of people and I was grateful that I could be an instrument in the Lord's hands in that moment.
After church we got to meet Marcel with Fr. Lavene. He's a less active man who Elder Noel actually told me about so it was cool to finally meet him! He's stuck in some worldly things but we're going to help him get out of it all little by little.
After dinner back at home we went to pass by some people. We also started using the Easter intitiative pass-along cards which I love. We passed by Sr. Casavant who wasn't home but then I felt impressed to go knock on a neighboring home. A young Haitian answered it and we introduced our message and he was interested! It was a miracle!!! And then he gave us the information for his aunt too! :D We then went over there to meet her too but it turned out the address he gave us was wrong. I was about to head back to the car but Elder Barreiro said we should try one of the houses. It turned out to be her! It was amazing!!! :D A true miracle of finding two new people in the last hour of our day! :D
 |
| Our snowless balcony |
So I cannot wait to see the miracles in store for this week! The Lord has his eye on Repentigny! Here's to another transfer here with Elder Barreiro!
I love you all so much! Take care! Especially little Lucy! ^_^ (Lucy is his new niece born this week.)
Love,
Elder Brooks :)
Elder Brooks :)
No comments:
Post a Comment