Pushing to our Breaking Point

This has been my busiest week by far since I left Salgueiro. Fortunately, it started off and ended with Brasil playing in the world cup (AKA days that we can't leave the house). I'm not sure if I already told you guys this or not, but my companion right now hit 1 year right before I arrived. My first 2 companions of my mission were what we call trabalhadors (trabalho=work, trabalhadors=workers). You have no idea how much I miss really working. In Pacajus (my current area) my companion is convinced that as long as we have the "average" numbers, we're doing great. Unfortunately for him, I'm here to serve the Lord. The Lord doesn't expect just average. He expects us to do everything that we possibly can. Many people in the USA and here have this misconception with the word "grace". They think that as long as we do "ok", as long as we do "average", the Lord will do the rest. THIS IDEA IS TOTALLY AND UTTERLY WRONG. If we dont push ourselves to our breakingpoints, he wont be able to be there at the end waiting to catch us. We arent all the same, we all have different breakingpoints. For this reason none of us have any right to judge. We don't, and we can't, know when someone is doing their best. The only people that know if we're really pushing ourselves are... Ourselves (obviously) and our Father in Heaven. 

This last week, I really had the opportunity to push myself. Elder Aron (My companion/District leader) went on splits twice, leaving me in my area with 2 different Elders (The first was an American with 5 months in Brasil that can barely speak Portuguese. He was stateside for like 4 months beforehand and lost everything he learned in the MTC, The other was a Brazilian with the same problem as my comp). The first day I found 22 new investigators and the second l found 19. We already have baptismal dates with a handful of them. The average (and the standard) for our mission is 20 per week... Just imagine how many baptisms we would be having every week here if our standard were double!! I'm gonna keep trying to keep our numbers up.

So this Sunday, about 10 minutes before church started, the Bishop of our ward asked me to speak (in sacrament meeting). I was terrified. I got up onto the stand, said a prayer, and almost immediately felt impressed to talk about member missionary work. I have no idea how, but I was able to speak for a little under 15 minutes!! You have no idea how strongly I felt the Spirit while talking. I wish you guys could have seen it!! Such a great experience.

Elder Hamstead