Guided to a Job

By Ildinete de Santo Souza, São Paulo, Brazil

I couldn’t find a job, but I was confident the Lord would bless me for my efforts to become self-reliant.

During my last semester of college, I felt that I should start looking for a job in my field of study, which was education. I planned to work part-time as an elementary school teacher. By then, my children had already grown up.

To prepare to enter the workforce, I enrolled in one of the Church’s self-reliance courses to help me find a job.¹ When I arrived for my first class, I was the only student there. The teacher was a gentleman with an American accent eager to serve others. During our lessons, he explained principles of the gospel that would help me develop faith in the Lord and act in faith.

It took me two hours to travel to the Church’s self-reliance center in São Paulo, but I showed up for class on time every week. I took the course seriously because it was important to me.

At the end of the course, however, I couldn’t find a teaching job. Nevertheless, I told my instructor that I was confident the Lord would bless me and that it wouldn’t take me long to find work. I studied for the tests I needed to take in order to compete for a schoolteacher position, and I started attending a self-reliance course on how to start a business.²

Immediately after I took the tests, I hurried to my stake self-reliance class. I told everyone there how prepared I had felt for the tests—thanks to my studies and my self-reliance courses.

Finally, I got the job I wanted. I felt immense happiness, and I was grateful to be able to pay tithing and offerings to the Lord. During my second self-reliance course, the Spirit prompted me to take EnglishConnect 2 and begin postgraduate work.³

I felt greatly blessed by this guidance from the Lord in making such important decisions in my life. I know He keeps His promises and that if we keep His commandments, He will bless us temporally and spiritually with the things we need to prosper (see Mosiah 2:41).