Surprise Decisions

I had a pretty cool experience this week on divisions, I left my sector for a day to go with my District Leader, Elder Brown (from Mesa, graduated from Mountain View). He´s pretty new in the mission, and it was fun to see for a day through his eyes and be lead by him for a day. We went to go visit an old investigator named Marcelo, who has a car-repair shop and lives there. Marcelo used to be investigating the church, with his wife and his 2 kids. Until 5 months ago, when his 19 year old kid got hit by a bus and died. He told us that God let him down, lost his trust, and broke the relationship between them two. How could he take such an innocent boy, when there are so many bad people out there? And why in such a brutal way? He was asking us these questions as we stood in the shop, just listening, not really sure what to say. I think we both felt that he needed more to talk than to listen, and so we just listened. I found myself in an interesting position, however, something that I´ve been thinking about a lot these last few days. 

The way we were positioned, in the shop, we were looking at Marcelo while he talked to us, and a little bit behind him there was a wall with a poster advertising beer, with an inappropriate girl holding her glass. Big picture, a potentially big distraction. I found myself staying focused on this man as the poster was huge and in my face. It took a lot of effort. It was a conscious choice. I knew that if I even looked up and it caught my eye that the Spirit could leave me, leaving me unable to help Marcelo in any way. The choice was pretty clear: Look, lose the Spirit, and lose the opportunity to help this man, OR be strong, maintain focus, and pray for the inspired words to help give this man what he needed in this crucial point of his life. 

Should be an obvious decision, should be an easy decision! But it was a real life, and it was kind of a surprise situation. I haven´t been able to stop thinking about the symbolism in that little 20 minute encounter we had, about the small decision we had to make. I really feel like THAT IS the decision that every young man in the world, especially inside the church, has to make as well. Give in to the desires of the natural man, or be strong and stay focused, qualifying us to have The Spirit and help others to feel the same. Even in surprise situations, we have to be strong and do what´s right, because even a momentary "slip-up" and we lose the opportunity we have in front of us, to bless the lives of others. 

Other than that, it was a great week. Elder Hair is progressing so much. I feel like I was too. A positive week, with positive work being done. We were able to have interviews with President this last week, in which I was able to set goals and re-focus my efforts here as I serve. I set a goal to better serve my companion, and I´m pretty sure he set a similar goal, because he has been serving me more than usual this week (he´s always been good at serving, but this week was like....bonus). Instead of making me breakfast, he tried teaching me to cook. He recognized how poorly I shine shoes (and how often I don´t even try) and so this morning, he told me to put on my church shoes, and he shined my shoes while they were on my feet, teaching my how to shine. Talk about training your trainer! Talk about being trained by your trainee! But The Lord works and teaches us in mysterious ways, and I have been grateful for my companion this week. 

Ready for another! 

Elder Hixon