It's Monday! It's been a crazy week that's flown by (as always). Can't wait to let you guys know all about it. We had a member of the Stake High Counsel, Nenad, visit our little group yesterday. When church started, there were only 8 people present including us. Many people came in late, but it's a bit disappointing. We have a weekly attendence of around 20-25 members and we've been trying to improve that since I got here. We decided this past week that we're going to focus more on finding a new group leader that's a member. Nenad also asked us to go through the member list here and get in contact with all of the less-actives and see if they're interested in returning to church, so we'll be busy the next few weeks doing that.
This last week, we FINALLY got the chance to go up to the north-eastern part of the island to visit an investigator named Mateo. He's been super busy with soccer lately, so it took a while for me to meet him. He's such a sick kid. He's from Colombia and is basically golden aside from the fact that he can never get to church (which often times is the case). He lives 3 hours away by bus on weekends since the schedule is different, so to go to church on Sunday, he has to spend 6 hours total travelling. He invited us to go over to that part of the island later today to go on a hike with him, which is why this is going out a little earlier than usual. The area where he lives is absolutely stunning. I've been told it's a lot like Hawaii although I've never personally been. We're excited for it.
I chose my subject line today because of the talk that Nenad gave in sacrament meeting. He based it off a talk given by Elder Hallstrom a few years back which addressed the difference between being active in the church and active in the gospel. As members, we can go to church every Sunday which is good, but if we're not doing the things we need to do during the other 6 days of the week, we're missing out on so many blessings. It's the simple things during the week like reading our scriptures and having daily prayers that are much more important that we often think. It honestly took me until my time here in the mission to fully realize that. It reminded me of the song by TEAM which goes, "Am I alive, or just breathing?" I want to invite you all the look at yourselves and ask the same question. Are you alive and active in the gospel by doing all you can and setting an example to others? Or are you just breathing by simply going to church every Sunday? The difference in blessings between the two options is outstanding.
I think that wraps up this week. The next few days are going to be fun. We're going to Tenerife again to do intercambios (exchanges) with the missionaries in the southern part. We usually don't get the chance to go on intercambios here since it's hard to get plane/boat tickets, so I'm way pumped. It's the last week of the transfer and it's almost certain that one of us will be leaving in a week, so we're making it count. ¡Que tengáis una buena semana!
Hasta luego,
Elder Penner 🇮🇨 🇪🇸
Fotos:
1. From a short hike we did last Monday
2. Return of the piso-find hat from Toledo
3. Letting you guys know where the ocean is
No comments:
Post a Comment