LIFE IS GOOD.‏

dear familia.

 

Roberto is the one without the tie

I have had a good week! The baptism of Roberto happened and it was quite the event becasue the baptismal font is broken... haha so I ended up bailing out buckets of water so we could clean it and then refill it just in time for the baptism! It was super cool because Roberto's friend, Eduardo, baptized him and his cousin, Ismael (who had been baptized in June), shared a simple but very powerful testimony. It is cool to work with the young adults and watch as they change their lives and find happiness in the gospel. In our ward we have a lot of young adults that are here for school that are inactive so we are going to plan an activity with them to get to know them better and hopefully we can start working on reactavating them.

This weekend we had stake conference and President and Hna Dyer were there along with the new temple president, Pres Jensen. It was so awesome and I felt the Spirit so strongly, especailly in the Saturday evening session. Hearing their talks made me so grateful that I am here on the mission and what a wonderful opportunity it is to be a missionary. Words cannot describe the joy that comes as you watch others realize the happiness that is awaiting them and the look on their faces as the truths of the Gospel "click" and make sense.

Yesterday we had an awesome lesson with one of our investigators, Carlos. He has ALOT of questions all the time and it is really hard to connect with him. We were teaching him the Plan of Salvation and he had a lot of questions to begin with so when it was my turn to teach about the three degrees of glory I was worried what his response was going to be, but I just followed the spirit and did my best to teach clearly and simply. When I asked him if he had any questions about the different kingdoms he replied, "no, I'm just imagining how beautiful the Celestial Kingdom is." When he said this the Spirit was so strong and testified to me that yes, the Celestial Kingdom is real and beautiful and where I want to live one day! I know that it was not my words that touched his heart, but the Spirit. I may not know the scriptures super well or can speak the language well, but with the Holy Ghost helping me I know that I can do anything. Sometimes it is hard to trust that the words I need will be put in my mouth and sometimes my faith is week and I am alone to try to talk. But when I trust in the Lord and His promises miracles happen. This work is full of miracles and I feel so blessed to see them everyday.

 We have five investigators that have come to church more than the three times they need to be baptized and continue to come every week but for some reason they still are not ready to be baptized. Juan Jose and Gladys are two of these people. They still need to get married... but they are happy and their relationship is much better than it was before and they want to get baptized. They just have to work out some problems with their extened families. Gladys was even fasting on her own without us saying anything to her, so cool! Trifon is also one of these investigators. He is ready to be baptized, but feels like he needs to know everything before he gets baptized. Hopefully this week we can set a date for his baptism! He is so great. He studies the scriputres everyday and truly wants to follow Christ. Another is the mom of Rilber and Shirley, Nelby. We are just waiting on her husband to come back from work in Santa Cruz so they can get married and she can get baptized! The fifth investigator is Fernando Torelio. His wife is a member and he has come to chruch MANY times. He just needs to start reading the Book of Mormon. Until he starts doing this he really can't progress much more. Hopefully he can find the desire to do so! Hopefully things can work out with all of them. I love them all so much and pray that they will follow Christ and be baptized!

I am so happy and am excited to see what this week brings. I love you all so much! Thanks for all your prayers and support!

 Hna Gardiner