Week 3 The Holy Spirit

I am new to the whole blogging scene and am learning a lot--please be patient as I mess with this blog and learn.  I am aware that the fonts are all over the place and that odd color font shows up in odd places.  It is a work in progress. ;-)  (Sofia's mom, Diane Paredes)

Please send emails to the following address while Sofia is in the MTC:
letter@mtcmexicocarepackage.com and put the subject as Hermana Paredes District #8B

When she receives letters at the above address, she is able to print them and therefore can read them any time. 

Hola everyone!!
So I totally promised you district pictures....and I forgot. I will send them this time for sure!!

So this week we started a new thing called TRC....for the life of me I can´t remember what it stands for. Basically in TRC we teach people from the "outside world"! They can be real investigators, inactive members, or active members. My companeria and I taught this lovely lady named Jessica. At first we were all just talking and laughing and getting to know each other, then I asked the question of what she wanted to get from our lesson. She than began to tell us that she was going to be filing a divorce soon and she had been praying really hard for any kind of comfort. She then opened up her bible and told us that god had put this scripture into her mind for an answer. It´s in Mark 2:21 (I´ll let you guys look it up and read it...) 

I looked it up, and here it is:  

Mark 2:21 No man also seweth a piece of new cloth on an old garment: else the new piece that filled it up taketh away from the old, and the rent is made worse.

and it was probably the most confusing scripture I have ever read.

After we read this scripture with her, she told us she wanted to know what God wanted to tell her through this scripture...my mind went blank....I could literally not thing of a single thing that the lord wanted to tell her through this scripture! I began to panic. We literally sat there for about five minutes in absolute silence as I read this scripture over and over again. I tried to open my mouth to speak but no words came. I wanted to just say "We cannot get revelation for you" and move on to our lesson but I could bring myself to say it because I could see the pain behind her eyes.

Just at the point I was about to despair that we would never find the answer for her, my sweet companion touched my knee and began to speak. She told this women that if we try to heal our broken hearts on our own it will never work, but through Jesus Christ atonement all broken things can become whole. The spirit witnessed that this was 101% true. All the sudden my tongue was loosened and I was able to add my witness of our savior and how he knows our sufferings. The holy ghost carried our message to her heart. I know this to be true because on the response sheet she committed that she was going to go to church this coming Sunday. According to our teachers this lady had not been to church in a very long time, to the point were she was considered inactive and the missionaries have been trying to get her to go for a very long time. It was a miracle! 

I learned something very important through that experience. I realized that I had been so focused on speaking perfect Spanish that I forgot to rely on the spirit. My companion on the other hand hardly knows any Spanish but she knows how to rely on the spirit. I believe that the spirit was trying to speak to me but I was so wrapped up in my own thought I forgot to listen so the spirit spoke to the person that would listen. She got the inspiration and I didn´t. 

The holy ghost does not shout...it gently whispers and if you don´t have ears to hear, you will miss it. I actually did a talk this past Sunday about the spirit and it taught me a lot. I used one of my favorite scripture Psalms 46: 10 "Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”  Be still and listen. Quiet your doubts and fears and then the Holy Ghost will speak to you. 

I love you all, 

Hermana Paredes 

Over and Out