Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Lacy will serve a mission!

My companion and I are in Praia right now. We got here on Sunday afternoon, and we’ll be here until Thursday. The zone leaders counsel will be Tuesday and Wednesday.

So this will be Elder Abularachs first time here in Praia. The Lord protected us very much as the plane had some difficulty landing yesterday, perhaps because it was rather windy. The plane made a crooked landing, but with a quick correction by the pilot, he lifted the plane back up and set it down straight, and we made a safe landing.

When it comes to Airlines service, we really have nothing to complain about, as African airlines are a bit of a challenge. More often than not a flight may be delayed up to two or three hours. They’re frequently cancelled and are somewhat overpriced. The last time we were going home from Praia, we had to wait in the airport over 3 hours for our flight. Sometimes your luggage does not make it on the same flight, and you have to go back to the airport a few days later to pick it up. Also, there is no way of knowing if your flight has been delayed or cancelled. You just have to find out when you get to the airport, which costs taxi money. Oh well… on the other hand, they have only had one accident, which was over 30 years ago. The planes are well maintained, and the pilots are well trained.

Yesterday, Heavenly Father gave me the most amazing gift on my mission. As we were walking to the chapel in Praia, a really dark, tall, skinny young man ran to the middle of the street, looked at me and shouted "CUESTAS!!"

It took me 1/4 of a second to recognize who that was. I screamed "LACY!!" and ran to the middle of the street where he was and met him in a screaming hug. I almost had tears in my eyes. He was my very first convert when I was in Tarrafal. He was wearing a white shirt and tie with slacks, and he was attending the District Priesthood meeting. He had finished talking to the Mission President and had just turned in his papers for his mission. His call will arrive in 3 or 4 months. I was so happy that Lacy had remained firm in the church, worked on his papers for some 3 months and just turned them in. He’ll serve a mission. Lacy will serve a mission!!! He was so glad to see me and had tears in his eyes, too.

As we walked back to the chapel, all the male members from Tarrafal started coming out of the chapel. Batcha, Mulato, Moises, Tony, Cederique, Zeletche, Zee, and Manny all came out of the chapel. All of them rushed up to me, and in a matter of seconds, I was being hugged by 8 people at the same time. What a miracle! What a blessing! I saw the people from Tarrafal that I loved so much. Lacy, Tony, Zeletche, Batcha and Mulato have all turned in their papers to serve missions. Unbelievable! I can’t describe the joy that my heart feels to know that these people, who we worked so hard for, are all going to missions, especially Lacy!

Elder Cuestas

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

A Spiritual/Fun Activity in Sao Filipe

We had been quite busy organizing a spiritual/fun activity that took place two Saturdays ago. We asked 5 people to participate in a couple of international dances that I learned at BYU. They dedicated four weeks of their time to practice, so they could show them to the community of Sao Filipe. We told our members to invite EVERYONE. This was a great opportunity to teach Gospel principles and have some entertainment as well as attract new investigators.

Following is a recap of this activity.

Satan did everything in his power to try to ruin everything as he usually does, but he lost, and God went through as always.

Everything started on Friday. We went to Cova Figueira for some necessary interviews with the elders there, and we didn’t realize that that Friday was a holiday and that there were no Hiaces/Vans working for our way back to Sao Filipe. We needed to be in Sao Filipe because that was the dress rehearsal, the final rehearsal for the activity. We had been practicing 4 times a week for the past 4 weeks. Elder Abularach said, well we’re not going to let this activity go to waste and not show up, so we left everything in the elders house, in Cova Figueira, except for our money, and we started walking back to Sao Filipe. It would have taken us 7 or 8 hours to get there, and we were ready to do it, so that we could be back by 8pm for the dress rehearsal.

Sometime into our walk, God tested our faith and rewarded us. A car that had not gone through Cova Figueira picked us up, and we didn’t have to walk the whole way back after all.

That same day a senior missionary couple arrived in Fogo to stay for 10 days. They’re the Adams, and they don’t speak Portuguese. So of course, we, the zone leaders, have to show them everything. As soon as we got back from Cova Figueira, we helped the Adams get into their hotel and then showed them around for the assignments that they were going to do.

At this point, it was 7pm, and we were extremely tired. The dancers showed up at 8pm. Satan’s second attempt. Minutes before we set up speakers and sound system for the performance, two of the dancers got into an argument, and one of them said that she was no longer dancing. Everyone was heated up by the argument, and elder Abularach and I spent some 20 minutes trying to calm everyone down. I don’t know how we did it, but we remained calm the whole time, and we managed to help them get over the silly little thing they argued about and to forgive and forget. After the girls had shed a few tears, they hugged and made up, and we started the dress rehearsal 30 minutes late, but we did it. A few of the kids that go to seminary were there to watch. They clapped and shouted, and that made everyone feel better. I really don’t know how we managed to help the dancers get over their little dispute, but I know that the Spirit of God was there in rich abundance and that they felt it and realized how trivial the whole situation was.

Satan didn’t prevail.

After the rehearsal, we all sat down and had a lesson. We taught the dancers how Satan made his presence and that if it weren’t for their will to forgive, Satan would have won, and everything would have been ruined. Abularach suggested making pizza for the dancers, kind of to calm things down, and to meet them the next day at 1pm.

Saturday came, and Satan tries again. The entire city was without power since early that morning. No power… no speakers… no music…no sound. I just prayed and prayed and prayed. I said, God we cannot worry about this. We’re exhausted and didn’t sleep. We’re just going to trust that you’re going to put the power back in time for the activity. I forgot to mention that Saturday morning, we woke up early to clean the whole house, so that the senior missionary couple could inspect it, which was one of the reasons as to why they visited Fogo. We started cleaning at 6:30am and ended up at 10am, and then we helped the Adams buy tickets to Brava, as well as ran other errands with them.

We finished right at noon, and we had only one hour to make pizza for 5 people. We ran to the store to buy the ingredients and went home to make the pizzas. We finished around 2:30pm and ran with the pizzas back to the church. Everyone was there, and there was no sign that an argument had taken place the day before. Everyone was laughing, joking and throwing pizza crumbs at each other. We were already exhausted more than we had ever been, but we were happy for them. We then told them to go home and start getting ready.

Power came back at 3pm, three hours before the activity. I knew God was supporting us in this.

Satan’s next attempt - all the leadership that we had invited to help us did not show up. We had been abandoned with just two members that showed up to help us set up chairs, to help with the sound system, and to direct everyone to their seats and to serve as security.

By 7:20pm there were 120 people in the chairs or otherwise standing. All the dancers were in the bathroom doing makeup and getting ready. They were able to look a lot better than we had originally thought given their conditions. They were all ready to go, but since the branch president was not there to conduct the show as planned, my companion and I had to manage to get everyone quiet to share the spiritual message and to get everything ready.

Not a single thing went wrong throughout the performance. The music worked. The dancers did as practiced, and the audience loved it. After everything had been said and done, the audience had asked to see the second dance again, so they did it again. They clapped and shouted even harder. It was then that the best moment of that weekend came to me. All the dancers were glowing with happiness and feelings of confidence and accomplishment. They did it. They pulled it off! Everyone loved the activity. Everyone thought it was great.

Then we met in a back room of the church, and we gave them water and took pictures. We taught them how powerful the Lord is to have gotten them to this point. From 5 clueless people that did not think they were going to learn this, to 5 dedicated, loving, and incredibly coordinated dancers. They did it! Abularach and I with dark circles under our eyes and so tired, we could hardly see straight. We left and went to the store, bought some cokes, and went home to make pancakes and went to bed. I had never been so tired before, but we did it, as the activity accomplished its purpose.

All the bad spirit from New Years and all the conflicts were done away with, and the spirit of friendship, church activities, and gospel principles was back in Sao Filipe. We showed everyone that Satan never wins. We showed them the power of the Lord and that through dedication and desire, anything is possible. We showed them who really has the right of way. It’s the Lord. No one can stop him. No one will mock him and get away with it. His work continues to press forward.

NOW... this week

Monday started out with our P day gone because we had to help the Adams. We helped them rent a car and drove with them all the way to Mosteiros (about 2 hours away) to inspect all the apartments of the zone. They inspected and installed new water filters, along with meeting with the branch presidents of every branch. After everything had been done, we got into Sao Filipe at 6pm, without been able to buy food for the week or write home. Exhausted, once again, we taught one lesson, wrote our families and then went to family home evening.

The activity secured some investigators and two strong baptisms this week. They’re Roger and Luizao. They went to the activity and started attending Institute and Seminary. Both made it to their interviews and to their baptisms. The service was very spiritual and reverent. I had a rejuvenating feeling as I sat there seeing them both in white ready to make those covenants.

It has been two crazy weeks, and it’ll get even crazier as we have to go to Praia this next weekend for Zone Counsel, but we’re happy. It’s all good!!!

Elder Cuestas

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Nedson's Baptism


So transfers happened this Sunday, and Elder Weiss is off to the island of São Vicente to the area of Fernando Pó serving as a district leader and training a new missionary from Idaho.

Last night, we spent a good amount of time remembering 6 months of memories and telling each other how grateful we were that we got to serve together. Elder Weiss is an incredible missionary, and I’ll miss him. The Lord has used us in these past 6 months to perform miracles. We’re both eternally grateful for this tender mercy and for having a dream come true on the mission. We had 40 baptisms together and baptisms every week for 23 weeks straight. What a blessing! I don’t know how it happened, and I’ve spent some time wondering, "Why me?" Why is the Lord using me for all these miracles? Only he knows, and I hope he continues to trust my new companion and me with his children.

I’m now with Elder Abularach from Guatemala. I already know a lot about him as I got to work with him when he was in Cova Figueira. He is an incredibly hard worker and is responsible for much of the success that Cova Figueira is been having. After 4 transfers, he already loves the people and is crazy about missionary work. He is humble and open. This is going to be amazing!

This week we had an incredible turnaround with Nedson, one of our investigators. Towards the beginning of the week, he was telling us that he did not feel that he was ready for baptism because of the big promise that entails. We were a bit worried that he was not going to get baptized. We went home and thought about it and realized that we needed to be more focused on Nedson´s needs, than whether he will be baptized or not. We prayed and told the Lord our plans and said to him that his will be done. We went back the next day and told him that maybe he needed more time to prepare. We started teaching him much more calmly, and we had a very spirited felt lesson. However, the next day we went back and the first thing he said was "Elders, I wanted to see you since early today. I’ve been thinking, and I want to be baptized this Saturday".

Elder Weiss and I were surprised to hear this. This was a man that was not interested in keeping any commandments when we first started teaching him. We said, "Well if that is how you feel, then we can make that happen" The rest of the week was spent preparing him for these sacred covenants. This just shows me the power of the Book of Mormon. It has the power of conversion. Because of the unfortunate events that have been going on in this man’s life, he turned to the Book of Mormon and read and read and read all through Jacob. He learned about Nephi and his family and all the events of their early life. He said that, at times, it was the only thing that made him feel better.

He’s turning into a man of God, ready to obey his will, and he showed him this in the most magnificent way, by partaking of the waters of baptism. What made his baptism even more special was how Heavenly Father made all this happen. Since there was no water in the Chapel, we went and had the baptism in the ocean. This is something Nedson will never forget. As he came up out of the water, he was full of the spirit, and the happiest man in the world. He told us later that day that after everyone had left, he stayed at the beach until late reflecting on his baptism. Right before going home, he poured his heart out in prayer to the Lord. This is true conversion.

Elder Cuestas

Thursday, January 5, 2012

A Very Special Dinner!

The work was slow all week as many of our investigators went out of town to be with family throughout the holidays and others were celebrating big time. Likewise, attendance was quite low at church this past Sunday because of people partying all night and what not. I know things will be better next week, and I have much faith that the work is going to pick back up.

New Year's was distressing here in São Filipe. People drunk EVERYWHERE and getting into fights and just all out iniquity. We went home earlier than the curfew and frankly, there was no spirit anywhere to teach.

I love these people so much, that it breaks my heart over and over to see that Satan can cause so much destruction in just one weekend. Elder Weiss and I are working for the Lord, so our hearts are full of compassion for the people we’re going to have to help now. Some of our members made mistakes throughout this weekend, and we hope to be there for them for whatever we can do in our power to help them.

Nevertheless, this Holiday Season was special because of moments such as this one. At the end of Saturday night, we stopped by Chuchuka and Luana, some converts from back in August, and we found out that they guessed we were coming, as they had prepared food on the table for when we arrived. This family doesn’t even have indoor plumbing or a bathroom in their home. The house is made of cement and clay and only has two working doors. Part of the roof is missing. Their kitchen sink consists of a bowl in which water has to be fetched to fill it up to wash dishes. Dinner consisted of a huge bowl of popcorn, a bowl of French fries, and some pound cake with lemonade. That was all they had, but they were so happy that we came. We went and sat down in their kitchen on the three chairs and a block of wood and stool and ate popcorn and shared the Christmas Spirit with them. Luana would look at us as we ate popcorn and drank lemonade, and she would just smile. I was almost in tears as I reflected on these two sisters and their little brother that will be baptized this weekend. They have nothing, but they have everything. They have the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and they know it. They know that they have the Holy Ghost with them as they smile and laugh and enjoy life with the conditions that they have. Indeed, it was a very special/joyous occasion for elder Weiss and I, and I’m grateful for that.

I have come to receive the greatest present I could ever receive in my life. That is that Heavenly Father has given me a true testimony of the principles of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This was a gift that took some time to put together. This was something that did not come easy, and took patience and perseverance, hard work, and devotion. It’s something that at times you think may never come, but before you know it, it does. And when it does come, you are the king of the world. You know who you are. You know who your Father in Heaven and your big brother Jesus Christ are. You’re their family, and you’re working to bring yourself to be like them.

I know with no doubt in my heart that Jesus Christ took upon himself the pains, iniquities and sicknesses of this world, so that we could live above it. I know that his teachings are true and that they’ll serve and bless me for the rest of my life. I know that God is our loving and caring Heavenly Father and that he watches over us every minute. He chastens us, and he comforts us. He dries our tears of sorrow and reprimands our pride. He speaks to us softly and lovingly, determinedly and firmly, so that we may be tried and tested. We grow, and we learn what true love is. We appreciate it and are brought to our knees in gratitude and love for him, who humbled and comforted us, him that paid for us to have the chance. I love him, and I’ll serve and defend him forever.

Elder Cuestas