Hey y'all!!
So
this week was another crazy one!! Tuesday was Fat Tuesday and the last
day of Mardi Gras. We got to go to the Zulu parade which is one of the
most famous parades here in Nola, and it was a freaking party!! The Zulu
parade is well known for throwing out coconuts and hey! I got one! It
was really funny watching all of us missionaries trying so hard to get a
fake painted coconut but hey, memories right? It is definitely a day I
will never forget! The one problem, my voice still hasn't fully
recovered from all the yelling trying to get coconuts and as many beads
as I could! Oh well haha 
All in all it was an awesome time but I am glad that Mardi Gras is over cause it made travel really hard in our area.
Now
for the miracle of the week. So getting doubled into an area can be
pretty interesting because you have to kinda start from the ground up.
It has been some hard work on the bike but our work is starting to pay
off. We were visiting one of Elder T's recent converts and randomly one
of his neighbors comes over and joins in the lesson and starts bearing
his testimony to us about how God can help change lives. This guy had
been an alcoholic for a long time and Elder T remembers seeing him drunk
all the time when he was working with his convert before. Cool thing is
tho, this guy decided that he needed to change and so he prayed and God
helped him to quit drinking! We invited him to come to our next lesson
and he said he would be there and he even wants to come to church! The
Lord really does prepare people to be taught his Gospel.
Spiritual thought:
1 Peter 1:7-9
7 That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold
that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise
and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:
8 Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not,
yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory:
9 Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.
Isaiah 48:10-11
10 Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.
11 For mine own sake, even for mine own sake, will I do it: for how
should my name be polluted? and I will not give my glory unto another.
Sometimes
we are called to go through trials that we don't understand. We know we
have faith and yet life is still hard, bad things still happen. Many
times I have asked myself why life has to be so hard, I mean I feel like
I would enjoy it more if it was easy right? Isn't that what God wants?
These two scriptures have come to be some of my favorites over the
course of my mission. They really put in perspective for me why we have
these trials. God wants for us something more precious than gold, he
wants our salvation. In Isaiah he states that we aren't refined with
silver. Why? With the Olympics going on I will relate it to that. What
is the goal of the Olympics? It's to get the gold right? To reach the
highest that an athlete can go. It is the same with God. He doesn't want
us to get silver, he wants us to reach the highest we can and get that
gold. Like Olympians, if we want the gold we must work to become strong
enough or fast enough to get the gold, the only difference is that it is
our faith that we have to work and that is why God gives us trials. If
we didn't have trials we would never have to use our faith and it would
never get refined into something stronger. He will never refine us into
anything less than the best so trust Him and know that, as he said to
Joseph Smith, "all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be
for thy good."
¡Dios les ama mucho!
Elder Nathan Stoddard
