Are We Listening?!?

~Chillogallo Zone~

Hello Everyone,
This week was an amazing week! I am still alive from the worm so all is good! haha My new companion and I are getting along great. Elder Mooney is such a great missionary. He has a little bit more time than me on the mission but he isn't trunky, thank goodness haha. He is such an inspiration to me. We read a lot about our purpose and we talked a lot about what we can do to help the zone and to help our sector. As we read and search more, more ideas keep coming and coming! It is awesome how the influence of the spirit can really take the mind to a next level. We are so lucky to have the spirit in our lives.

We had some pretty crazy contacts and lessons this week. I am studying meekness and how I can be more meek. I feel like the correct definition, from my point of view, is that it is being in the right even though everyone is against you and accepting it humbly. That sure is a hard thing to do! And thanks to Heavenly Father, I have had MANY opportunities to develop this attribute haha. I know that God answers prayers. I know that He is listening and He answers but we as humans don't listen. We were contacting one day as all our citas (appointments) fell and we came upon this house and knocked the door and a man came out and said "don't bother me, I am fasting." So we said "what are you fasting for sir?" He said "it's none of your business." So then we gently invited him to listen to our message as it is centered on Jesus Christ and will bless your life tremendously. So he let us in and we started teaching him a bit and getting to know him. He told us that he was fasting for direction in his life. He has belonged to his church for 20 years and is in training to be some sort of leader. He feels he needs something as if something is missing and he wants to know where he should go and what God wants from him. So obviously we were pretty excited to share the message and we expressed to him that we were representatives of Jesus Christ and we are here to share what God would want from him. We started with lesson #1 and it was gong really well! He was interacting and it seemed he was understanding! We were super happy and the spirit was strong. We then invited him to pray for himself to see if these things are true and then he started asking a lot of weird questions. Like not really interest questions, rather questions to try and prove us wrong. Finally after a while of going back and forth we asked "Are you willing to ask God and read the Book of Mormon to see if it is true?" He said "No" and sadly we left. We were talking all the way back to our house and how said it was that Heavenly Father answered his fast so quickly and how he didn't accept it! I look back at my life and see the same thing...It's not that God isn't answering, its that we aren't listening. It's something that has impacted me ever since that happened this week. God works in mysterious ways for sure, but these mysterious ways are the best ways possible. The ways that will get us to not only change our behavior, but our being too. We have a Heavenly Father who loves us. He listens. He answers. I have such a testimony of that! I love you all and hope that we can all be more humble in order to receive direction from Heavenly Father in our lives. Have a great week!
Elder Reynolds

*Here is what he said about his worm experience:
It was fat little sucker! I don't know if you can tell in the video but I got light headed and sweaty just looking at the worm right before I ate it...but I knew I had to do it at least once! Good thing I got that over with lol! It's kind of nasty because I could still feel the worm moving around in my mouth because the first chew I didn't quite get it so it was all trying to crawl for dear life! lol It was a once in a lifetime experience definitely! My stomach was paying the price a little bit after but I heard it is super healthy for you because I was getting a cold at the time and I ate that thing and then the cold just disappeared! They say it actually helps with that haha! Blessings in disguise...I guess lol.