KEEP LOOKING UP

Happy Holidays you studly family! I hope you are well and happy. I sure am in Olhão. Irmã Valdez and i have been working so hard to find those the lord has prepared for us to accept baptism and well.. the work hasn´t been the same as to what i have been use to my whole mission, but Irmã Valdez and i have had the opportunity to teach many less actives recently and it is going really well. We now just have to get them to come back to church. ha ha They love us and accept our lessons but getting them back to church is the hard part. Right now we are teaching Nã and Aline. They are dating and living together.. Nã is a member and Aline has accepted to take the discussions. She has accepted baptism and once we get somethings resolved she can be baptized in a few months! Hopefully sooner.. but we have to wait and see. She is so wonderful and someone the lord has prepared for years.. and now it´s her turn to finally dive in!!!! we love it!

There is a topic i have been studying and thinking about this week that came from a phone that i received. Irmã Walker (my comp from the MTC) called me and gave me a scripture to read that really made a difference in her life. Well, It has now made a huge difference in my life.

Luke 9:62   "and Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God."

okay.. strong words right?? yeah, that´s what i thought. But the more i thought about it, this life.. the one we are living right now is about progression. So i realized i wasn´t perfect out here in the mission field.. it was news to me.. ha ha anyway, we all make mistakes in life. We take the wrong trun, we do things we regret, we say things we didn´t meant to say.. Well, Christ suffered for all of this. That is why we have been so blessed with the atonement. We can repent of all that we have done wrong and he will forgive us.. but that means we have to forgive ourselves as well. We cann´t look back a dwell on something that we have already be forgiven for. Like it says in the scripture above, we are not fit for the kingdom of god if we continually look back. We need to be okay with the past, learn from it, love it and live for it. Because if we didn´t pass through the challenges and hardships, we couldn´t progress and become stronger. My goal for all of you is to forgive yourselves of whatever it is that is bothering you from the past, chat it out with Heavenly Father and move on. Don´t be Lot´s wife that diminishes into dust because you lust for somethig that is already gone and won´t come back..

Psalms 147:3   "He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds."

That is exactly what the Lord will do for each and everyone of you. We´re not perfect and we will continually apply this teaching in our lives, but I feel EXTREMELY blessed to have this knowledge and know that our savior "knows how to succor his people according to their infirmities." alma 7:12 I´m not looking back.. only forward. I´m taking everything i have learned for the last 23 years and i am literally running with it.

Have a great week my loved ones!

Love you XOXO

Com muito amor,
Irmã Boshard