MORE Baptisms, Humility and Good Advice

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  From Elder Darke:

Yet another amazing week!  As I look back I dont think any of my mission hasnt been amazing :D.  Thats because missions are awesome! :D.  

    Wow this week went by fast though.  It seems like just yesterday I was at this very computer writing emails.  When in fact, it has been a week :D.  This week The members have been really amazing here and we had two different activities that we were able to bring investagators to :D.  One was a integration night.  It was fun becuase we separted into groups and tried to answer questions correctly.  While it took a while for me to understand the questions (my companion was rewording them into really simple phrases for me :D.)  and then after that trying to figure out how many books the old testiment had was still not easy :D.  My answer was way wrong :D.  Then on sunday we have a ward reunion sort of thing, and we had investagtors there to :D.  Both very enjoyable.

    We have taught many people this week!  We have 5 people that have agreed to get babtised.  Now we just need to help them finish getting ready for this amazing ordinance.  Five people though.  How amazing is that?  I think its because of my companion, he is a great teacher.  I have been trying to help as much as I can, and understand everything else, but he has been doing most of it :D.  

    This week has been one of learning though.  My companion really has been trying everything he can to help me.  Now advice is not aways easy to except.  When you have made a plan, and it is perfect.  Or at least, it is good enough that is doesnt need to be changed.  It takes a lot to take someone else´s advice.  A lot of humility.  You need to be humble enough to admit that maybe your way isnt the best, and that there are better options.  Humble enough to act on the advice that has been given to you.  When we do this though we look back to see that becuase of the advice that we have been given, our lives are immensly better then they would be otherwise :D. My friends, please take other peoples advice.  It is not easy, not in the least.  But It is worth is.  The advice of our parents, the advice of our teachers, the advice of our freinds.  The only reason they are giving you advice is becuse they love you and want to help you be better.  Dont think of it like they are judgemental, but think of it like they are trying to help.  If we look at it this way, our views on life can be much improved.

    Let me tell you of some advice that i got from a good freind of mine.  I was a teenager preparing for my mission.  I had a hard time memorizing things.  An extremly hard time.  Scripture mastery from seminary was perhaps the most challenging thing from seminary for me.  One day I was talking with my bishop and he told me to memorize scriptures.  As many as i could.  He told me that these scriptures would be great comfort in times of trial.  Then turning to my future mission he told me that I would be able to teach people much more effectivley if I had memorized some scriptures.  He told me an amazing analogy.  Every scripture that i would memorize would become an arrow in my quiver, and as I gathered many arrows i would be able to help people as I fired these arrows through the bow of the holy ghost.

    Now being rebelious me I thought to myself, ´´I cant memorize things for the life of me, and he want me to memorize many scriptures? How am i going to be able to do that?´´  Nevertheless I worked on scriptures.  Now I remember the words to many scriptures.  They give me much comfort and help when I need them.  The only problem is I did not memorize where the scriptures are.  So I cant look them up in portugese very easily :D.  My bishops advice was true.  At the time it seemed to be an impossible task.  As I got a few scriptures down though they became the tools of comfort and power that he talked about.  Now, I can see that effect that scriptures have, I have been trying to memorize even more of them!  For (as my bishop also said many times)  ´´You cannot teach what you do not know, anymore then you can return from a place you have not been´´.  Such wise words, that i would not have known if my bishop had not taken the time to teach them to me :D.

:D

-Elder Darke

Wow!  He's growing up so fast!  It's good to hear that he is keeping his humility with such success!  We hope that you have a wonderful week!
Love y'all! Melanie (Mom)