The Blessings of Obedience

Hello family and friends!! 

This week was a struggle for me and my companion Elder Momesso. One of our pesquisadores, Mateus, still can't get his Mom to sign his baptismal form. We have been praying and fasting fervently to open the heart of his mom to allow him to be baptized and follow the path he wants to take. This past week he has started to lose a little hope, and it took a lot of convincing just to get him to Church yesterday. One thing we stressed to him was the importance of hope. We learn in the scriptures that hope and faith are connected. You can't have hope without faith and vice versa. While teaching Mateus, I felt like I needed to have more faith and hope as well.

We endured a lot of struggles this week. None of the appointments that we set with our investigators worked out, all of them fell through. No one wanted to talk to the weird guys in shirt and ties in the street. 2 investigators just dropped us for no apparent reason. Overall, this week really tested our faith and hope in the work. After countless prayers, I received the key to end or struggles, Obedience. Elder Momesso and I decided to set a goal to be exactly obedient in being on time, being obedient because we WANT to, in everything. When we put our goal into practice we immediately saw blessings. We were able to find investigators that we couldn't find for weeks, we had more energy to work, and we found joy in the work again.

I thought to myself this week,

"Why is obedience the first law of heaven? Why not faith, charity, love?"

I came to this conclusion, because Obedience is an action. When we are obedient, we show our faith to God that he will bless us. When we obey the commandments we have pure love for others because we are commanded to "love our neighbor as [ourself]". If someone knows all the teachings of Christ, has read the Bible or Book of Mormon cover to cover 5 times, and doesn't put in practice the things they have learned, they are not reaching their full potential. When we are obedient with exactness, nothing wavering, God will always pour out blessings to us. I have a testimony that obedience to God's commandments is how we can return to live with him one day. 

AMO VOCÊS

- Elder Eliason