October 2, 2011

Dear family,
Conference was amazing!!!!! I got to listen to it in English cause our investigators chose put into practice 2 Nephi 2;27 there free agency between liberty or.. not coming to church. So we didn’t have to sit with them in the Spanish and we watched all of it in English. I agree with you dad Elder Holland’s talk was amazing and very powerful. He does bring up a good point. It kind of seems like the youth are hitting there teenage years and then stepping away from the gospel and then deciding when they turn 19 to fix themselves up and try and get out on a mission. The church would be so much stronger if the youth would see the importance of the gospel in their young lives. (I’m not a teenager anymore i don’t think i now pertain to that category). There were two things that really stuck out to me. 1) The importance of a testimonio. With investigators they really have Satan fighting against them, and their neighbors and family fight against them in becoming a [Mormon] and so when they receive their answer from God and recognize it the next lesson is automatically trusting in the Lord and the feeling that you get from the holy spirit. 1 Juan 5:9 I think, says in trusting God’s testimony over that of the men. Its so important to trust in the promptings that you receive. As a kid i don’t remember receiving many promptings so i think it would also be important in listening to the spirit as to strengthen your testimony. Somebody can and will fight against doctrine but no man can fight against a firm testimony. 2) The importance of temple work and genealogy, doesn’t apply to me much here but i found it interesting. Its really fun and has put a new perspective on conference when you testify of these men all day and then you finally have the chance to here them speak. This last week we had some success and some lesson learning ha. First off i got a funny story, so we were walking back to conference Saturday night and walking pretty fast, we were crossing the street to get to the church and, i have no idea what tripped him or if it was just his shoe but my comp. tripped and had his backpack on and it kind of carried him forward a little and he tried to catch him self by speeding up, and couldn’t get it and i don’t’ know why he didn’t use his hands but went straight face first into the street. I have never honestly seen a face first trip like what he did. It looked so funny, almost like he didn’t have hands and tried to catch himself with his face. He is pretty scratched up. I laughed and he got mad at me for laughing, he is kind of defensive. o ya and about 3 hours before that we were doing contacts and we were in a hurry so we went over to a group of 4 men that were drinking and laughing, we introduced ourselves and the continued to invite them to church. One of them half drunk started preaching about there is no second coming and the life is just going to end so why should he care. Never in my life have i actually called someone to repentance till then, i pulled like a Alma Amulek type speech.  2 of them shut up and the others kept making fun of us and threw their empty beer can at us but it was very fun. Lastly we found a family named roberto y mirium de la cruz. They are amazing!!!!! We told them to read and they read, we told them pray and they prayed. and the next lesson said they received their answer and want to get baptized!! It was such a powerful lesson. I am so excited for them. The only problem is that she is huge pregnant and she might not be able to go to church...
but i love you and thank you for those that sent letters they are always fun to read. I finished the Book of Mormon yesterday, love it
 edler shaw