Bringing the Gospel to Brazil: Challenges bring growth

Well, this week overall was challenging. But challenge means growth, which is always good. Let me tell you some of the challenges of this week:

First off, huge respect to missionaries who served or are serving or will serve in parts of the world with rain. It rained 6 out of 7 days this week. I’m not complaining, but I can officially say that knocking doors in the pouring rain isn’t my fav activity. One of our investigators, Yara, is awesome. She’s 19, super smart, and reads super fast. She is already in Alma. We marked her baptism date and had her ready to be at church for the first time, but…she got in a fight with her mom and ran away to Porto Alegre. We haven’t heard anything from her. Another one of our investigators was psyched for her baptism this last Sunday. We had taught her and her family all the lessons, she has friends in the church, and she already was living all of the standards of the church. We called her Thursday to mark her baptism interview, and she told us that she doesn’t want to be baptized, and that she has no reason for her to join the church cause she never received an answer. As I pleaded with her to think about her decision and help her think about the answers she had really received, but she told me there was nothing that I could do to change her mind. As she hung up, I felt a lot of things…heartbroken, shocked, confused, broken, spiritless, and tricked. I had put everything into teaching her and her family, yet there was nothing that I could do to change her decision or agency. It took me a while to accept what had happened. But when I eventually did, I could say that I had put everything on the line, and there was nothing more I could do. I was reading in Philippians this week and several scriptures helped me feel at peace and regain focus. Verses 5-11 helped me see how Christ’s life wasn’t fair, but he still did everything for us because of his love. And like Paul, I can say that I can rejoice in Christ because I have not labored or run in vain. Through the mission, I can help others rejoice with me through preaching the good news of Christ. Overall, I see this week of challenges as inspired growth. We need the hard times, rough patches, and grind it through moments to become better in all things. It’s funny because I feel like pre-mission Elder Bodine would just be frustrated, impatient, and angry with a week like this. But after a year of a mission, I can happily take positives our of the negatives. Learn with this moment and move onto the next day with a positive attitude on everything. Thanks for all the love and prayers.

Dave