Feb 26, 2009 - News from Elder Andrus

Hello Family,
Well this week has been a pretty good week. An incredible thing happened to us after I wrote you last Thursday. There was a lady named Jahaira that we were working with, she was doing incredible. She was about three days away from her baptism. She was on fire, she was receiving all kinds of anti from family and friends. But she did not care because she knew that the church was true, and that it was where true happiness came from. So like I said she was a couple of days away from her baptism and a certain subject came up and we realized that her husband could not be baptized for some time. Jahaira did not like that her husband would have to wait to be baptized so she fell out. It broke my heart to see the fire she had and to see it thrown out in a second. She stopped coming to church and we lost complete contact with her. After a couple of week I decided to write her a letter to remind of all the good things that was in her family’s life and the answer she received from god. I also included a talk from E. Bednar about choosing not to be offended. She still did not contact us of come to church. But last Thursday she called us crying. She could not say too much but asked if we could come over. We went over that night and she told us that she has never been so miserable in her life. After we left the door and she stopped going to church she felt the spirit completely leave her life. She was depressed and she started to drink again to try to dull the pain. She said she kept remembering our last time we were there pleading with her that she did not want to throw away true happiness and that she knew that the church was true. But she said that she did not want to listen because of her pride and her hard head. She told us that she needed to come back and that she needed the spirit back in her life and that she could not deny the answer that she received. She told us that she is not going to stop her kids salvation and her own because of her pride. We have been teaching her again and happiness and the spirit is starting to enter her life again. It has been a great faith building experience to see her return to what she knew. It was a trail of my faith to loose Jahaira. Of course we lose people to world every day, but seeing what she had and see her choose to reject all of it was hard for me. I truly had to trust god and know that it was in his hands. That was hard for me because I like to know I have at least a little control of how things turn out. So this has been an important event in my life to show me that even though I might lose track of someone god never will. I am learning over and over in my mission what "Letting go and letting God" truly means. Well family that is the story for the day. I love all of you. Time is flying.
Love,
Elder Andrus