Week 65 - Bennett Valley

Querido todos,

This week was good! So we have a cool experience from this week and then I'll outline something I really liked from general Conference! What a blessing it is to be able to hear from the living prophet and his apostles. Their talks were inspired and the spirit was felt so much during the conference. 

The cool experience: we got to have another lesson with Juan and he is so prepared by the Lord it's crazy. He is the most prepared person I've seen on my mission and exemplifies D&C 20:37. We've had maybe four lessons with him now and he has such a desire to be baptized.

He is slower at learning and recognizes that as we talk with him but that doesn't hinder his desire at all. He has recognized the peace that he can feel with the gospel. In our lesson we read 2 Nephi 31 with him and every time we stopped to ask what caught his attention his eyes were wide and he understood more the significance of baptism and why that is what the savior is asking. We explained the doctrine of Christ and how we need to enter into the way through the door.

So we again talked about a date with him but next month he has an operation coming up for his chest and he isn't allowed to get part of his chest wet, which creates sort of a barrier as we talked about a baptism before his operation. So we invited him to pray to know what the Lords will is for him right now. At the end of the lesson he said the prayer and it was a prayer that really strengthened my faith. The amount of faith he has struck me. He talked about how he knew he needed to be baptized and how he wanted to have the Holy Ghost with him but outlined in the prayer why he had reasons to want to wait.

But after that all he told God that he had faith and that he knew through him everything would be good and okay. The spirit was really strong during his prayer and it's such a cool experience to see how the spirit can affect someone and how the Lord truly prepares people in the right time and provides a way for them to be found. (Juan is the man that a member meet and by an off chance drive him home and invited him to church).

He will slowly catch onto all the lessons and everything in the church but it's a testimony to the joy the gospel brings. The only thing he knows is the truthfulness of the message with its peace and joy and the only thing he wants is to have that more, the rest doesn't matter.

A note from conference: First off let's point out that there were a dozen and a half references to singing in it and that Les Mis was used as a comparison. It's fine, I didn't freak out or love those parts but I thought I'd add that in there for ya.

For me this conference had some themes to it, there were many things that were outlined more than once. Something that really hit me was the importance of each of our individual testimonies and the importance of having the ability to recognize the spirit for ourselves. We live in a crazy world and following the gospel that Christ himself taught sometimes isn't easy. But if we build our testimonies on him and we step by step learn how to feel the comfort and warnings of the spirit we will be blessed to know him when he comes again.

So I invite you all to just read the Book of Mormon to just read it every day all day if you want it's just so good and little by little you will come to love it more and more. If you read it really desiring to know if it's the word of God you won't be able to open it without feeling the spirit touch your heart. If we read this book every day we were promised by the living prophet this weekend that everything will be okay that all will work out and that we will build an unshakable testimony of the savior Jesus Christ. What promise is better than that. I love the Book of Mormon I really could read it all day long but there's missionary work to be done.

Read it, ponder it, and love it! Love you all and have a great great week!

Les quiero 

Hermana Foster

A members owns a Tutti Fruity and always gives Missionaries Free yogurt!!!

Santa Rosa District Hermanas!