00:00:09 Me and my mum started attending meetings
00:00:11 and studying the Bible when I was five years old.
00:00:15 When I was 13, I decided to get baptized.
00:00:19 I decided to dedicate my life
00:00:21 to Jehovah when I was 14.
00:00:24 To me, Jehovah is a wonderful God.
00:00:27 He’s not just a Friend that you can count on but also a Father.
00:00:32 I don’t have a spiritual father here on earth,
00:00:35 but I have Jehovah as my Father.
00:00:39 It was always something that I had in mind
00:00:42 —to let the truth convince me
00:00:44 and not serve Jehovah just because my family does,
00:00:47 but to serve Jehovah because of the love I feel for him.
00:00:51 Having that clearly in mind is very important
00:00:53 and will make all the difference when a problem arises,
00:00:56 or when we have to deal with something, in the future.
00:00:59 Some of the truths that convinced me
00:01:02 that Jehovah was really my God
00:01:04 were mainly basic truths.
00:01:07 I believe that they’re like the foundation of a house.
00:01:11 Without a good base, a good foundation,
00:01:15 a house will not remain standing.
00:01:19 For example, I wanted to understand better
00:01:22 from a more scientific standpoint
00:01:25 that Jehovah really created all things.
00:01:28 So I read a lesson from the brochure Origin of Life.
00:01:32 From that, I saw how Jehovah really made everything
00:01:35 in a very complex way and that there was no other explanation.
00:01:41 It was doubts like that that moved me to study the Bible more,
00:01:46 which helped me to build a better friendship with Jehovah
00:01:50 and to be more convinced that he was the true God.
00:01:53 I always enjoyed and made a great effort
00:01:56 to feed myself in a spiritual sense in the morning.
00:01:59 When I was a teenager,
00:02:01 I went through some problems that were pretty tough.
00:02:04 I felt better in the morning.
00:02:06 It was a time of day when my problems
00:02:09 didn’t seem so big in my mind.
00:02:12 It’s very important to have spiritual goals.
00:02:15 Because if we don’t have goals,
00:02:17 it’s like going on a journey with no direction, no destination.
00:02:22 But if we’ve got a purpose before leaving, we know where we are going
00:02:26 and how we can get there safely.
00:02:28 I always think in terms of setting short-range goals,
00:02:31 medium-range goals, and long-range goals.
00:02:34 So some goals that I was able to reach
00:02:36 were getting baptized and becoming a regular pioneer.
00:02:39 I also had the privilege of serving in construction groups.
00:02:43 No matter the choices that I had to make,
00:02:46 I always thought about how they would affect my goals in the future.
00:02:49 When I was 17,
00:02:52 I found out that my mum had cancer.
00:02:55 That was a heartbreaking situation.
00:02:57 Suddenly, my life was turned upside down.
00:03:02 I had to learn how to care for our home, how to cook,
00:03:06 how to care for someone sick,
00:03:08 and how to give emotional support to that person.
00:03:12 The biggest challenge that I faced when I was a teenager
00:03:16 was when my parents got divorced,
00:03:19 and then my mum stopped serving Jehovah.
00:03:22 At that time in my life, I was 15 or 16 years old.
00:03:26 At that age, you need a lot of support
00:03:29 and guidance from your parents.
00:03:31 It was a time when I didn’t get that guidance and that support.
00:03:34 My mum was my best friend, and I lost her.
00:03:41 She was always so loving.
00:03:44 She always helped me.
00:03:47 She always read the publications with me.
00:03:50 We loved to study the Bible together.
00:03:55 We don’t know when problems will suddenly come up.
00:04:01 So it’s important that we take
00:04:03 Jehovah’s side before the challenges,
00:04:05 before problems, arise.
00:04:09 A text that really helped me
00:04:11 was Romans 8:37-39.
00:04:15 There it says that ‘neither death
00:04:17 ‘nor life nor height nor depth
00:04:20 ‘nor anything else
00:04:22 can separate us from Jehovah’s love.’
00:04:25 So that really helped me face those challenges.
00:04:27 Having a strong Christian identity
00:04:31 means having values and principles
00:04:35 that are the same as Jehovah’s.
00:04:38 You clearly make up your mind to please Jehovah,
00:04:41 even with what’s happening all around you.
00:04:45 It’s very important to make the choice to serve Jehovah
00:04:48 no matter the situation we face
00:04:50 or no matter if our family serves Jehovah or not,
00:04:55 because it’s when we face challenging situations
00:04:58 that we’ll see if we can continue to be loyal to Jehovah or not.
00:05:01 No doubt about it,
00:05:03 I’m very proud to be one of Jehovah’s Witnesses.
00:05:06 Jehovah can help us in amazing ways.
00:05:10 He is our Friend, our Father, our Comforter.
00:05:15 It’s really good to be friends with a God that is so powerful
00:05:19 and to have the chance to defend his name.
