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| 4th of July BBQ |
I'm just gonna jump right into it.. this week was insanely successful! We taught over 20 lessons.. it was insanity. So thankful for the car! otherwise we would have only been able to do about half that. Our teaching pool has 13 people in it. We have 3 baptisms going down this weekend, and another potential who is alllmmoosst there. She just has this tiny concern/doubt, but she told us if she can feel comfortable with it she will be baptized this Saturday! We are going to see her tonight.
Something really cool about all these people we've found so far this month that are progressing towards their baptisms.. 5 of them were the last door we knocked. As missionaries, we knock for at least 1 hour a day, sometimes 2,3,4, or +. One example is our boy Juan. We'd knocked for 2 hours, and changed spots like 3 times because it just didn't feel right. We had time for one more door before our appointment, and we could have easily just gotten in the car and left a few minutes early, but we knocked and he seemed kind of interested, so we set a return appointment but didn't think much of it.
We had to reschedule the appointment several times and thought maybe he was just blowing it off, so we almost didn't go back and see him, but as soon as we taught him we saw that his desires were through the roof! He committed himself to church, reading, and has already been twice. Hes one of those people that you find that teaches themself. And now he's getting baptized on Saturday the 11th! (which is the best day ever for obvious reasons..)
So the 4th of July in Miami is super depressing.. it doesn't really get celebrated other than people getting really wasted and shooting of fireworks and guns. Needless to say, we were all ordered to be inside our apartment complexes by 7. We wanted to live up the day of independence, however, so we bought a charcoal grill and grilled up some patties and hot dogs in the jogging park. We got to play football, futbol, and Elder Sandoval and I sang Toby Keith at the top of our lungs (the statue of liberty started shaking her fist!)
In my personal studies I'm learning a lot about meekness still, and I've been trying to study it from a different perspective and delve deeper into the concept of what meekness is. I found a reoccurring appearance of the word "Soberness" and it reminded me of my favorite professor from BYUI who taught my English 201 class (shout out to Sister D'Evegnee! Hope you're reading this!) I dove into my study of soberness to learn more about meekness. From studying soberness I learned more about certitude, and having purpose behind every action, thought, and word--specifically in my situation as a missionary of the Lord. This is a huge part of being meek, as well as avoiding "frivolous" actions, thoughts, and words. The more I study meekness, the more I realize why Christ says "only the meek can inherit the kingdom of God." I personally feel like meekness is an all encompassing Christlike attribute, that I know personally I need to work on and need to obtain. It's also one of the most difficult and requires a lot of self-mastery. However, we can always receive help and strength through the Lord.
Love you all and miss you all a lot! Thanks for everyone who gave me a shout-out for this Saturday!
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Elder Johns
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