Stroganoff + Charity

 Wey! Espero que estén bien!

Some days this week were kinda hard. Lessons are falling through, it is so hot, and there are very few people in the street so contacting is difficult.

But testifying about Christ and His restored gospel is genuinely the best thing ever. Even if we have a day where we try all day with little success, if we have just one lesson, I forget how hard the day was. If you asked me at 6pm how I was feeling basically any day this week, I would say it was kinda rough. But at 9pm when we're back at the house I'm always just like, "BEING A MISSIONARY IS THE BEST THING EVER" and I mean it. There were multiple days this week when we only had one or two lessons towards the end of the day, but they were lessons where the Spirit was present and I got to sit down with one of God's children and tell them about something that has changed my life and can change theirs. And the joy of that overpowers all the exhaustion and rejection.

We're teaching this amazing lady named Penelope. She has such good questions and a genuine desire to follow God and understand the truth. On Saturday we taught her about the Book of Mormon and it was such a beautiful moment when I told her that the copy she was holding in her hands was hers. She promised us that she will study it diligently because she wants to know if it is true or not. She couldn't come to church yesterday but she is excited to come next week.

In my personal study I've been thinking a lot about charity. I've been studying all over but a lot in King Benjamin's address. It's making me think about charity in a deeper way than I have before. These are a couple of the things that have stood out to me as I've been studying:

   - if you live the gospel you will naturally develop charity

   - we know that God grants our righteous desires, so should we not seek to impart to others of what we have received?

   - he who is not charitable cannot retain a remission of his sins

Charity has been an unending quest for me. I want to be full of the pure love of Christ. That involves consciously rejecting the natural man, who thinks only about himself. Sometimes I do better than other times, but the amazing thing is that every day is a new day with many new opportunities to help someone else. Maybe I could have done better yesterday... I'll make it my daily mission to do better today. And that also turns into daily joy. Acting and thinking with charity genuinely makes me happier.

I have been eating WELL. Hermana Fernandes cooks amazingly and I'm determined to this time actually learn my my chef comp and be able to cook a ton of Brazilian things by the time this transfer's over. She made me Brazilian stroganoff and it was so good that I asked for it again like two days later.

Anyway. There's your random thoughts from a missionary for this week. Have a fantastic week! First week of MAY.... holy cow...

Hermana Cazier

Pics featuring spa night, party exchange, a parrot that talked, and me really tiring my comp out. We are having way too good of a time