Fasting and Biking

Dear friends and Family,

First of all, I don't recommend that you do the above two things at the same time...especially in the Illinois heat. Saturday we experienced the after effects of that, and it was miserable!

But I feel not to murmur, because this week was absolutely spectacular!!! There is so much that happened that I wish I could put down, but for now, I'll stick to the two or three best stories!

On Monday we started prostelyting at 6:00 as usual and we started with a prayer. Now we had been talking about specific prayers where you ask for specific blessings and so we decided to try it. Well, I prayed for the first thing that popped into my head, and that was that we would find a new investigator that day who was wearing a bright green shirt. Weird right? Yea, well the story gets better.

We started walking down the road and were about to turn left when instead, we saw a woman on the other end of the block wearing a bright green shirt. So we chased after her and as we talked to her, she said that she would listen to our message if we went to this place with her and drank some stuff. I know, it sounds bad, but we checked it out and it was just this experimental protein drink and she needed 10 people to drink it 4 days in a row in order to graduate from her class. Well, needless to say, we followed her to this place and as we walked in, literally everyone was wearing bright green t-shirts. The woman Griselda is now our new investigator!

The next story has got me so excited, I really can't express it in an email. OUR INVESTIGATORS ARE GETTING BAPTIZED ON THE 27TH! It has been such a blessing to be able to work with them and to feel the Spirit work so strong with them. Their names are Antonio and Olivia Leyva and if you could pray for them, that would be much apprechiated!

When we taught them on Wednesday, we committed them to baptism and they said yes, but Antonio said that he wouldn't be able to come to church this Sunday because he was working and it was going to be really busy that day. Well we told them about fasting and asked them if they would fast with us so that he could come--even just for sacrament meeting. They agreed and all day Saturday we fasted (we also biked about 25 miles that day which is the part I don't recommend) and waited Sunday morning to see if they would come or not. 

Sure enough, they both walked into the chapel at 10:55 and my testimony of fasting shot strait through the roof! Antonio said that he just said a prayer at work and then asked his boss to let him leave for an hour and his boss said yes. It was a complete and utter miracle and I am so excited for their baptism!

I just want to share a little bit of my testimony, that has been strengthened a lot this week. I know that when we sacrifice something for God, he pours out his blessings upon us. When one door closes, he always opens up a better door; I have seen that throughout my mission and I have seen that this week. The scriptures say,

9 Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?
10 Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?
11 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?
(Matthew 7:9-11)

I know that when we ask and when we are willing to do whatever the Lord commands us to do, it is then when we are in the BEST position to recieve his help.

I love you all and I hope that you have a wonderful week! And trust in the Lord, He knows better that you do!;)

Elder Arkoudas

Pic 1: Goats!

Pic 2: Cook out with our investigator Mauro