3-2-2012

 LOVE MEN THAT TALK WITH GOD!
  The conference was great, was it not? Luckily I am in a place big enough to have received the conference because there were some Elders in our zone that did not have the privilege.  I loved it! It's so apparent that those men are prophets seers and revelators!  This last week was filled with miracles that I could not justify by circumstance or luck, but I know that God hears my prayers and answers them! 
This whole last week was great. The weather has cooled down significantly to the point of where I wake up a little bit cold!  We found many people to teach, including one woman and her child named Yudy. She is so very intelligent but we are not sure if she got baptized in our church or in the Jehovah Witnesses. She doesn't remember but she knows she got baptized somewhere.  There is another man that is named Jorge.  He is thirty years old and we started teaching him because he fell in love with a returned missionary sister here.  Turns out that he loves the church. Our lessons are so powerful with him.  He keeps telling us that he knows that God is answering his prayers to find the right path in this life through us and it really makes a missionary feel good when someone says that to you!  But really the amazing part of this week was the weekend. I absolutely loved the talks, all of them.  Elder Holland is a stud.  And his closing line stirred up quite a few people over here ``Repent, ITS GETTING LATE``. To me there was a big focus on the activation of the less actives, to reach a hand out to strengthen our brothers that have partaken of the tree of life but strayed away. Also I liked how a lot of talks focused on the way we treat others, including the relations in the family, avoid judging, serve, love, and resolve all contentions! I forgot who said it but a quote that really hit me was ``our Heavenly Father did not put us in this life to fail, but to succeed gloriously``!  Another was the story of the scholar that came to know the Book of Mormon was true through reasoning and scientific conclusions, but in order to have lasting testimony you absolutely have to have a spiritual confirmation.  I think that applies to all people, how we cannot rely on the testimony of your parents you have to ask god!  I remember one investigator I had in Cuidad del Este named Diego! I loved him and he was going to get baptized but then his mother in law beat me on the head and they fell away, but he was going to get baptized because he was so smart.  He always told us yes your message makes sense... but every time we asked him how he felt in his prayer he never received the confirmation. That is one of my biggest regrets I wish I could go back and baptize him! We just had to focus on the spiritual confirmation and not the reasoning of this message, even though it makes perfect sense!
Some of the miracles, the first 3 sessions we did not have one person, not one new investigator in church... AGAIN, so I was praying like crazy for the last session to get at least one person because we were working so hard and had lots of people committed to go. The last session started and nobody was there I said a prayer for someone to come and within 5 minutes we got 7 new people in church to listen to the conference! It was such a blessing.  My prayer was answered instantly.  And many other miracles happened this week but I know that God hears our prayers. Yes this week is changes and we should be getting the call in a couple hours to know whose going. I will let know next week!
I love you all,  
elder shaw