So we will officially combine the 2 areas this week as Elder Taylor and Dowdy leave on Thursday. From then on, Elder Cohen and I will cover the entire city of Providence with several surrounding cities. It's gonna be awesome!
The rough part is that I have surgery on Thursday morning, and I'll be out of the fight for about 5 days, so that really makes the first couple of days with our new area a little bumpy. I've been organizing a very elaborate schedule of exchanges with near-by missionaries so that they can have the opportunity to teach some lessons and so that Elder Cohen won't be 'doing nothing' with me in the apartment for 5 days. There will always be a companionship teaching lessons while the other Elder is just sitting with me in the apartment, and then they take shifts and switch with other companionships, etc... I hope everything goes smoothly. This will be a challenging week, but I'm up geared up and ready to go.
We had a wonderful baptism this weekend for Maria Tejeda. She would have been baptized a month ago, but she had to wait for her husband to be a little more on board with it. She's stronger than ever, and she knows TONS about the gospel. She cruised through the Gospel Principles manual, and she loves to study the scriptures. I don't think I've ever seen someone who was so ready to be baptized before. She's going to be a great strength to the ward here. I've attached some pictures of the baptism-enjoy!We have another baptism this Saturday lined up for our good buddy George. He's 12 years old, and his mother has been an inactive member of the church for a long time, but we recently got back in touch with them, and George immediately showed interest in getting baptized. He's really smart for his age, and his enthusiasm has really gotten his mother going. He's such a good example. He wanted me to baptize him, but I might not be able to because of my surgery. He understands that it doesn't matter who performs the ordinance anyway, so he'll be fine either way.
A woman whom we are teaching, Maria, had an interesting dream this week. She really believes that God communicates to her through dreams, and she didn't know how to interperet her dream, so she was asking me about it. Anyway, she was in a huge wheat field, and there was nothing but field in all directions for what seemed like an eternity. She then saw in front of her 3 distinct pathways, each leading different angles, that stretched out so far that you couldn't see where the end was. She was so confused in her dream, and she didn't know which path to go. I knew of several events in her life that happened recently, namely that she ran into an old friend from a church she used to go to a long time ago at the store who invited her to come back to her church, and that she's been meeting with us now for about a month (and we've been inviting her to church as well of course). She'd already been travelling on the path of 'indecision', not realizing that choosing not to make a decision is a decision in and of itself. I offered my 'interperatation' of her dream and offered council from the book of Ether, where he explains that process of decision-making and faith, and left her with Alma 32 about the seeds of faith. It hit her like a ton of bricks, and she knew that she needed to make a decision based on faith. She's been praying and reading, searching for an answer, and she's still confused and unsure. Just like in her dream, she sat confused and worried as she looked out on the three paths ahead of her. If she makes the decision to step forward with faith, trusting that God will take her where she needs to go, she doesn't need to worry that she can't see what lies beyond the horizon. I love the inspired words in the hymn 'Lead Kindly Light', particularly where it speaks about decision-making, "I loved to choose and SEE me path, but now lead Thou me on." We sometimes have to make a faithful decision, and step out into the unknown, with trust that God will never lead us astray. As we do so, the path is illuminated before us, and we see how God took care of us, thus increasing our faith and moving us on to the next faithful step.
All of us eventually are backed up to the wall of faith, and there we have to make our stand. After all the discussion, the words, the prayers, the study, and the pondering, we must eventually make a faithful decision, thus teaching us to rely solely upon our Lord. This is how we build trust in Him, and this is part of the crucial process of revelation. We must understand that God does leave many decisions to our own choice for a reason, so that we can learn and grow.
I know that as we seek the Lord's guidance and counsel, and as we follow the admonition of the Savior to 'seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." that we will always be guided in true and correct paths.
I love what I'm doing, and Iove you all so much. Thank you for your prayers.
Your favorite elder,
-Elder Shepherd
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