"He Trieth Their Patience"

Buenos tardes PE!  I hope that you all had a good week.  My week was awesome!  I want to start out with a scripture that has been on my mind.....Mosiah 23 and it says, "Nevertheless the Lord seeth fit to chasten his people, yea he trieth their patience and their faith."  This verse is talking about the people who followed Alma and had repented of their sins and had been faithful to the Lord, and the Lord allowed them to be oppressed by the Lamanites in fulfillment of a prophecy from Abinadi earlier in Mosiah and to test their patience and faith through trials.

I have been thinking a lot about the importance of patience and faith in the Lord in our lives.  My whole life I have always been super impatient.  It has always been a weakness of mine but I learned a valuable lesson this week.  These past couple weeks it has been super difficult to find new people to teach.  We pray to have the guidance of the Lord to be led to people who have been prepared for the gospel, and we haven't had too much success, I felt stressed, I felt like our work has been unproductive in the aspect of finding, but we have been diligent and have done everything we can to find these people who have been prepared.  Yesterday, we had Stake Conference and while we were sitting in the meeting this guy came up to me and said that there was an investigator from Laureles who wanted to talk to us.  We went to see who it was and it was a guy I had never seen in my life.  He started to talk to us and said that he is going through some hard trials and is looking for God in his lif.e.  He said he felt far away from God and right when he entered the church the Area Seventy gave a talk and talked about what the Jairo was going through. At the end of the meeting he came up to us and said he felt a peace that he has never felt before and that he wants to learn more about our church.

After that experience, it really made me think. There is no way that that was coincidence that he showed up right in time to listen to this general authority to talk about everything that he was going through. I know that  we came in contact with him as a blessing of our PATIENCE and FAITH in the Lord. For not stopping when we felt discouraged and for continuing in prayer and faith.

 I know that God knows us perfectly and that He is with us in everything that we go through. It is up to us to except Him. God is a God that possesses all knowledge, understanding, love and compassion. Counsel with Him daily and ask for His guidance, be patient and faithful and it is my testimony you will see the hand of the Lord more fully in your lives.

Elder Johnson