The Temple dedication
was wonderful! We watched it from our local chapel and it was great to see
Pres. Eyring and Elder Ballard there. They talked a lot about "knitting
hearts together in love and unity across the veil". It was spiritual and
really inspired and I feel so blessed to be serving here in this special time
of the church in this state.
They had a cultural celebration for the temple dedication on Saturday night and we were able to watch that from the chapel as well. As we arrived to the chapel, we saw two cars parked alone out front with security guards standing outside them and we figured that Pres. Eyring and Elder Ballard were in the chapel! So we just sat and waited in our car trying not to look suspicious until they walked out. They were walking out as we walked towards the door and Pres. Eyring looked at us and pointed at me and said, "where are you from?" I proceeded to tell him I'm from Utah and then he continued to ask the remaining three elders where they're from (all Utah haha). He then thanked us for our service and got in his car. Then we walked towards the chapel and there was Elder Ballard, hand extended waiting to greet us and thank us for our service as well. It was great to meet 2 Apostles of the Lord!
We met with C. this past week and had the opportunity to talk with her more about being baptized. She still seemed unsure which was a little discouraging, but we kept talking. She mentioned her mother, sister, and daughter who had all pretty recently passed away and she said she was worried about their spiritual well-being where they are. I felt the impression to talk to her about our visit to the temple open house and specifically genealogy and baptisms for the dead. I told her that I believe her loved ones are waiting and hoping for her to get baptized so that she can do the work for them here on the earth. We had a member there named Martha who testified strongly on the topic and helped a lot in the lesson. It was a great help! We all knelt down and prayed individually and we invited her to pray and ask God if she really was ready to be baptized. After about 8 minutes of praying, she got up with tears in her eyes and said she was ready. It was an incredible lesson thanks to the help of the Spirit!
Training is going really well. Elder Shepherd works really hard and he is definitely a lot more prepared than I was when I started. He speaks Spanish really well for a greenie, his only struggle is the comprehension part of it. But he's studying hard and learning a lot. It's a blessing to be able to train a new missionary.
We haven't been able to meet with J. since last Sunday and we've been calling but he hasn't answered. He lives really far away so it's not really an option to just drop by sometime because we're never out that far east. We're hoping everything's ok and he's just been really busy. It's usually ideal to teach someone every day if you can haha but usually that's not possible. Teaching someone 2 or 3 times a week really helps progress them towards baptism.
Now that the temple is so much closer, I've heard that we'll be able to go once every transfer! That will be such a blessing as it has actually been almost a whole year since I've gone and done a session in the temple. So I'm really looking forward to the opportunity to go.
Well that's really all that happened this week. We're
still working hard to find the people who have been prepared to receive this
Gospel. We have a goal to get 500 baptisms as a mission in 2015 and right now I
think we're around 250 so we're praying a lot and hoping for a miracle.
I love you mom! I got the package. Thank you so much! The cookies are delicious and we're enjoying the ipod. I love you Mom! Talk to you next week!
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