19 April 2013

     Hello outside world!! I've decided that everyone should serve a mission. Todas las personas en todo el mundo!!!!! Because it. is. amazing. This was my first full week at the CCM and I couldn't have loved it more! We've been teaching an investigator se llama Pedro, and we love him so much. In reality he's just an actor, but when he's our investigator he's acting out his own conversion story. He has a friend named Bentley that introduced him to the church and he just wanted to know more. So each companionship in our district had the chance to teach him four times. And it's kind of confusing but it's like we we’re each teaching a different version of Pedro, we’re each in an alternate reality where only one set of missionaries taught him so when we go in he only remembers the things that we've taught him. Was that a geeky enough explanation for you? =] But anyways, the first time my companions and I taught him was on Friday and we tried to teach him the Plan of Salvation but we were way too focused on our lesson and our terrible Spanish to pay attention to the Spirit to know his needs. The second lesson was on Saturday night and it was beautiful. Not because of anything we said, our Spanish was still atrocious, but because of the Spirit that was there. We didn't go in with a specific lesson plan, we just decided to ask what questions he had and what we could do to help him. And we did. We answered his questions about the Atonement and the Plan of Salvation, about the need for baptism and the importance of the Book of Mormon. The Spirit was so strong. I think that was the strongest that I have ever felt it in my life, I could almost hear the words that I needed to say, I remembered Spanish words that I didn't know I knew. Beforehand we had wanted to leave a Book of Mormon with Pedro but the only Spanish ones we had were our personal copies and we didn't want to leave them because we use them every day. But during the lesson I realized that it was so much more important for Pedro to have that book than me, it didn't matter if I had it, I could work around it, but Pedro absolutely needed it. So when the time came I gave my Book of Mormon and that one simple act brought the Spirit into our lesson so strongly, we were all in tears. From there we talked about the example of Jesus Christ and the gift of His atonement and the importance of following His perfect example. And then we did it. We extended the baptismal invitation and he said yes. But it was so much more than just a yes to baptism, it was a commitment to follow Christ and live HIS law, to keep HIS commandments and love others. It was beautiful and I know that we couldn't have done it without the help of the Spirit. We did our best to speak the language and the Spirit translated it for Pedro. I know that with the power of God, anything is possible and that we have to live worthy in order to have His Spirit with us always, so that we can follow His promptings and do His will. As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints we are representatives of Him and it is SO important that we follow the Spirit so that we can act in His name. It is SO important that we only do the things that He would do if He were here because we do not want to misrepresent Him.

    Another amazing thing that happened this week was the Tuesday devotional. Every Tuesday at the CCM there is a devo and a General Authority comes to speak. Usually it's a member of one of the Seventies or some other auxiliary leader but this week we were blessed to be taught by none other than Elder Richard G. Scott of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. I had the chance to sing in the choir at the devo, along with hundreds of other missionaries, but that guaranteed us seats in the same room as Elder Scott so we got to watch him live instead in one the other rooms that it was being broadcast to. AND we got to sing one of my favorite hymns, Nearer My God to Thee, and the choir director enlightened us all to the fact that the song is actually about Jacob's Ladder from the Old Testament (look it up, it's in Genesis or Exodus, and then listen to all the verses of the song, AMAZING). Elder Scott spoke about prayer and the importance of communication with God. He said that God answers prayer in one of three ways: 1. with a warm, comforting feeling that lets you know you're doing His will, 2. with a cold stupor of thought that lets you know that the choice is incorrect, or 3. with nothing. Sometimes God doesn't answer our prayers in either of these ways and when that happens it means that He trusts you enough to make the right decision on you own, keeping in mind His commandments and His will. We should be grateful for these chances to act on our own and praise God, thanking Him for the trust that He has in us.

   He also focused so much on the fact that we have been called of God to serve Him and that God does not set us up to fail, He sets us up to succeed. He knows that we can do it and He has faith in us, we just need to have faith in Him. Elder Scott also pronounced an Apostolic Blessing on all of us that we would MASTER our languages and that we would be successful. It was amazing.

   I love you all and thank you for the letters, the ones that have come, the ones that are in the mail, and the ones that you are going to write when you finish reading this ;)

La iglesia es verdadra!!!

Hermana Grow