Refiners Fire

the riberia

Wow, this week was... a growing week, haha. A faith-testing week. :) There’s always the good with the bad and the bad with the good. This wee just had more bad than normal.

How we dry our clothes 

I am doing my best. And I am really learning to believe that if I simply do my best in the best way I know how, the Lord will accept my efforts, like Pres. Hinckley said. (thanks for sending me with that quote, Ames :) ) It’s really been a hard week, but there were still miracles. We had every day full of lessons, but every day at least half of them would fall. But, because some of them fell, we were able to meet with members, or have members show us some references they had given us, like Bilinha. She was a reference from a member. She is a less active who is so humble and ready to return to activity in the church. THe only thing that will/could be hard is that she needs to get married. WE will need to see what her boyfriend thinks of that idea. But she’s so ready to return. SHe wants her family to be eternal and her three kids to grow up in the Gospel. And she came to two of the four sessions of General Conference, and tried to go to the other two as well, but of course Satan made it difficult for her. But Saturday and Sunday nigth she came, and brought all her kids with her. It was awesome. :)

Being the senior companion has been really stressful for me, because I’m a perfectionist. It was especially difficult when they cut the power to our apartment on Tuesday (still not really sure why the bill didn’t get paid, but the office is getting it all straightened out), and our phone is basically useless unless it’s plugged into an outlet... so it was completely useless, unless we were at the church. Then a bunch of our lessons were falling, and Andira, who was supposed to get baptized this week, didn’t come to church. When we passed by to talk to her, she didn’t want to talk to us. But we were able to talk to her anyway and found out her sister, who is her son’s godmother, wants to baptize him in the Catholic church. And she’s stressed out about it, so she decided to leave religion alone for a while, she said. Man, that was such a crazy lesson! We ended up finding out that she hadn’t ever prayed to know if the BOM was true or if the church was true, and that she wasn’t reading the BOM, just the pamphlets she had collected. But she ended up picking a scripture to read, one that a member here had marked for her, and as she read it and thought about it, I could see the Spirit enter her heart and bring her relief from her stress. We talked about the power and importance of reading the BOM, and reading it every day, and praying and asking God for an answer. She still has a bunch of concerns, but she said she would start reading it every day, praying every single day, and asking God if the BOM is true and if this is His church. The hard part is that after that lesson, we haven’t been able to see her... she hasn’t been home every time we’ve passed by, which has been at least once every day after that. Her brother, Roberto, is a member, and he said she doesn’t like to accept help from people, so she might be avoiding us... I don’t know. But I really hope we can help her learn in her heart that it’s okay to need help, especially help from the Lord, and that He WANTS to help her and that life will be SO MUCH EASIER for her if she will accept His help.

Typical Caboverdean lunch, fried egg, "hamburger"
and rice with whatever you want to add to it.

The member who agreed to stay with me until my mini-missionary arrived is-surprise!- my mini-missionary. :) Apparently they hadn’t yet found anyone to serve a mini mission, so now she is serving. :) I was super relieved when the assistants to the President calle dand asked if the member who was with me wanted to serve a mini-mission, because I already know her, and she already knows these people and the area a bit (she lives in the other area, so she doesn’t know our area SUPER well). And wow, she is so good at teaching part of the lesson, too. And helping me understand Creole. :) LIterally everyone speaks at least a bit of Creole... kind of like how almost everyone in the South has some sort of Southern accent if they have been there long enough. Except everyone has basically lived here their whole lives, and each island basically has their own “Southern accent”. I think I’ll be really good at understanding Spanish after all the Creole that I’m learning to recognize and understand.  I’m still figuring out how to train, and to remember to push Sister Maurício, but not hard enough to overwhelm her and to do it in a loving but firm manner. I’m definitely not perfect, but I’m so glad I don’t need to be.

Oh, and Lara and Nadine moved houses and said they wouldn’t ahve time to meet with us and show us where their new house is until they’re moved in, which will be this week. So I learned a lot about not stressing out, taking all these things in stried, and saying, “I’m doing my best, and that’s good enough. THat has to be good enough. I’m doing my part... I’m doing my best in the best way I know how. Relax and trust that it will be enough.” And, because a lesson fell through, we ended up running into Nadine when she was heading back to her house, so she was able to show us where they live... yay! Small miracle. :)

It was still hard, though. But we still saw miracles!

We stayed with the other sisters when we had no power
and they shared their nightly popcorn with us.
When it's hot we sleep in a "panel" which is a piece of really thin fabric.

One day we were avoiding a lady who we had marked with, but were told that we NEED to have a member with us to teach her because she talks about Satan and with really rude language and... I’m not exactly sure what, but dark stuff that made Sister Pina and her mini leave her house really fast when they sat with her one time. But, no member could come with us, so we went down a few streets from where she lives. I thought one would be enough, but then I felt like we should go down one more. And WOW! WE ended up contacting some people, and one of them was a former investigator that was going to get baptized with her cousin, but they both went to a party or something the day before or something... somehow it fell, and they also stopped going to church. But now we’re going to talk with them and see how they’re doing and where they’re at! It was a tender mercy!

Man, there’s so much more I want to say! But I’ll just mention one more thing.

We were able to talk to Lenine this week, and wow, he has grown so much spiritually! He and his girlfriend broke up, and he said he doesn’t feel anything. Yay! Now he can find a woman in the church who will support him and help him be his best. Sadly, he couldn’t be baptized this week because he will start school in São Vicente this week, and we didn’t have sacrament meeting so he wouldn’t have been able to be confirmed. He really wanted to be baptized this week, and has been reading the BOM every day, from the beginning. He was going to leave yesterday, but he ended up coming to the last session of General Conference instead, and he’ll be on the boat with us today (we have zone conference there tomorrow). Man, he is so awesome. I wish I could be there for his baptism!

So really, this week was good. I learned a lot about trusting in the Lord and being okay with doing my best and recognizing that other people have their agency, too, and Satan is working hard to stop them from being happy.

I think the biggest thing I learned from all the chaos this week is just to trust in the Lord. To remember that it will all be okay. And to decide not to stress out about things, especially if I am doing my best. The Lord will accept my efforts, and I was still blessed to see many miracles this week. And it’s okay not to be perfect. That’s why we’re here. Wow, I’m so grateful for the Atonement! Oh, and General Conference was just amazing. I’m excited to listen to all of them again, in English. :) But it definitely helped me refocus on what matters most and to decide not to stress.

Love you all!

Love,

Sister Zimbelman

Crossing again!

Crossing the Riberia which we do multiple times a day