Mission Week #73

February 28, 2012 (19 Months) 

Hi!

Last week went super fast. All day Tuesday we had a Leadership meeting which was awesome. Until then I had not met the 2 counselors of President Pitts. I don't know how it is in other missions but I guess President kind of runs the show himself here because we never see the counselors. They both spoke to us though and they are awesome men. Both are former mission presidents and I learned a lot from them. One spoke to us about general leadership and what makes a good leader. The other spoke about The Book of Mormon. He is a professor at BYU and teaches the Book of Mormon class and you could tell that he had a deep testimony of the divinity of the book and the principles which are taught there.

 

We had an awesome teaching week last week. The Gonzales family went to the Salt Lake temple and visitors center last week and that seemed to have a large impact on them. The parents accepted baptismal dates and the kids are slowly opening up. I have been going over there twice a week for 5 months now and it has been cool to watch them change. Their conversion is slower than that of others but it is happening. Two other people who made solid progress last week were Josie and Veronica. Josie is the 19 year old girl who moved from California to get away from a not so great way of life there and is really turning her life around. Veronica is the 22 year old whose sisters are members and has been coming to church for awhile. We saw her twice this week and she is praying about getting baptized.

 

Also, this morning we had a lesson with Katy. I think I mentioned her last week. Anyway, this morning we had a lesson with her and we invited her to be baptized and she accepted. At our last zone conference President showed us something from the scriptures that was pretty sweet. In Spanish it is the "Padre Nuestro" prayer, and in English it is "The Lords Prayer." I had read it tons of times but he showed us how we can apply it and I have been using it ever since. If you ask anyone in Hispanic culture to recite you the prayer almost everyone can do it. Very rarely, however, they are aware of what they are praying for. We asked Katy this morning to recite it, which she did, then we asked what the prayer meant and she said she had no idea. Part of the prayer is "thy kingdom come." We testified that the kingdom is here and that in answer to her prayers she is receiving the message of the Restoration. She thought about it for a second then said "wow." We haven't even taught her that much but she says she feels that this is what she needs to do.

 

Tomorrow is ZLC so this week we worked on the ZPA. It is a good one. 

 

I hope you are all doing awesome! 19 months tomorrow...wow!

 

Love, Elder Clark