MIRACLES

February 11, 2013

Hey family, well I would like to encourage everyone to read Moroni 7. God does not cease to work in miracles or he would cease to be God, if we have faith in Him we have the power to do all things. God uses many ways to bless us daily and they are all miracles. The influence and the ability we have to recognize and receive more miracles are through our obedience. If there are no miracles there is no faith. But what is the difference in asking for miracles and expecting miracles, if we continue in the same chapter we will find out. It speaks of faith and hope. I testify that faith is the belief and trust in the Lord that through our obedience and good works we will be blessed abundantly, because He is obligated to bless us when we are obedient. That is the asking for miracles. The hope is the same belief in the Lord and trust in Him that we will receive those blessings., The hope is an act of patience in expecting the miracles knowing they will come in the timetable of the Lord. It was a great inspiration that my father asked me to study this specific topic this week as this week was full of miracles.

Angel and Delicia are getting married. She has had a complete change of heart and wants to complete the commandments in order to receive the promised blessings of the Lord. We are preparing her to be married in 2 weeks along with her baptism. And Angel’s cousin wants to get married and baptized with his girl as they have seen the change in Angel and Delica. We met them on Friday and they told us they want to get married and baptized. So we have two families to get in the water. We planned on baptizing Brayan and Pablo on Saturday, but due to a few situations we only baptized 3! Yes, Nils showed up right before Pablo’s baptism and had made the decision to be baptized as well. O how my soul was filled with the love of the Lord. Knowing that finally through six months of teaching him all of the baptismal dates he rejected the Lord blessed us through the fasting and the praying from the past months I know the Lord has His hand here in this area. And yesterday we had an attendance of 90 which is the highest in years. The branch has completely changed and I know that the Lord is keeping his promise to me by blessing this branch through the fasting, prayer, obedience and diligence of my companion and I. I am so grateful for the great miracles and the little miracles that happen every day. This whole week has gone by without a hitch we receive references daily. We don’t have time to contact it’s awesome. I’m so grateful for the inspiration of my father to steer me in the right direction in my studies. I am on the threshold of reaching the year mark. I have 14 baptisms as of this point and have made a goal to triple that number this next year. I don’t know if God can try me much harder, because it always works out in the end. If I get changed today I will be fine knowing that this area is better than it was. Always remember God doesn't change He cannot. Miracles happen daily if we are humble enough to recognize them. Our spiritual outlook will increase greatly and our faith will grow until we are filled with the pure love of Christ which is charity and if we endure to the end with that same positivity and knowledge we will live with our families and God for all eternity in celestial glory. I love you all this is the Lord's work. Read your scriptures.

Nils is in between Elder Bustos and me and Pablo is to my left. Brayan was baptized earlier that day, but the pictures are loading real slow so I doubt i'll be able to get it to ya.

BUSY WEEK

February 4, 2013

Hey fam

Well we have two baptismal dates for the ninth they are both investigators that we have been teaching for a short time, but unlike our other investigators they are completing their commitments. So that means that Nils and the Salazar family have yet to accept a date which makes me sad, but we will see what happens. Also we have planned a wedding on the twenty-third so hopefully I will be around to see that. This week to be honest was very normal just working nothing extraordinary happened, but we are just putting our shoulders to the wheel. We went to Yantaló again this Saturday, but with all the missionaries and we found a lot of great people. That area will be sweet one day, I just hope that when we go back we can teach the people in a way that they will have the faith to come to church. Sorry I don’t have much to say, but the week just went by so fast that I don’t remember much of it. Oh don’t tell anyone I climbed a tree to pick fruit on Wednesday for service I don’t think I’m supposed to do that. Well any who i'll have some sweet baptismal pictures next week. Peace


I'm really sorry my lame Bolivian zone leader is telling us to get off so I can't send pictures so I'm sorry again about that.

WHEN IN DOUBT OPEN NEW AREA

January 28, 2013

So this week we started off playing soccer as a zone and then buying breakfast food. Elder Vander Merwe and I made tons of different breakfast foods. We even made biscuits and gravy and o geeze was it tasty. This week we taught a lot of lessons and got a lot of stuff done. We are putting together a branch mission plan so we can better train the members to share their testimonies so that they will be able to give us more references, And so that those references will have friends that are members of the branch. Its something I did in my old area in Lima and worked well after a little bit of time. So we are exited to see if it will work well here. Also we are starting to open up a new area about ten kilometers from the edge of our area so we have planned to go this weekend with all the elders of the zone and a few of the members in order to help this area get opened that we might be able to get some new members in the seats. The elders from the other branch had a baptism this last week. We brought Nils to the baptism and he seemed to really enjoy it. We haven’t had time to visit him this week with his schedule, but we are hoping that he has made a decision and that we can get him wet. We have two baptismal dates for the ninth of February. One is a 12 year old boy whose name is Brayan. His stepfather doesn't want anything to do with the church and his mother came with him to church yesterday, but they are not married so that will be an obstacle for them so we will baptize the son and see what happens. Also we are going to baptize Pablo who is 19, and who is a son of a sister in the branch who lives in the other branch, but who comes to our branch who I started teaching with Elder Castro 6 months ago. I gave the reference to the other elders who then gave it back because he wants to attend our branch. So he will most likely get baptized as well. The Salazar family only needs to accept a date and they can get wet too. We taught the Suarez family the plan of salvation with only scriptures being that William is a judge and also a lawyer he likes to know the facts. So we explained to him why we need to read a bible that is translated correctly and we gave them a king James then using that same bible we explained the entire plan of salvation with complete doctrine. They didn't have many doubts because we answered all of their questions, so I was very excited. We bore solemn testimony and continued to promise them that all of this evidence is worth nothing unless we have confirmation from God. So we invited them again to pray and we are hoping that they will humble themselves and do so in order for them to receive an answer. So in reality we are continuing to do all that we know how and trusting in the Lord. The other 8 families we are teaching have yet to come to church, but once they do you will all know. When we have all of the toughest afflictions is when we need to put all of our confidence in the Lord in order to strengthen our faith.