The Time of my Life: 3/26/12

Family!!!!

I love you so much I LOVE reading your emails :) Dave, Mom, and Dad, thank you so much for your emails. They really make my day :)

Anyway, I have SOOO much to say this week!! I hope I remember everything. It has been a WONDERFUL week! The Lord has blessed me so much this week as I´ve tried to push through the hard times and replace it with working. ¨Work, work, work. There is no suffiecient substitute.¨ (In Preach My Gospel - I love it). He is so merciful and will sometimes bless us and help us even when we feel like we´re not deserving of his blessings. This week Elder Rich and I have been working on truly taking Christ´s name upon us and take our calling even moreso to heart. It has been such a good experience. Striving as hard as we can to be better representatives of Christ in everything we do, say, think, and feel has been so rewarding!! More than anything, it has helped me to gain an even greater love, respect, and reverence for my Savior.

Shaid and Me at the Panama City Temple

Ok so probably my highlight of the week: we went to the temple with Shaíd (I figured out this week I had been spelling his name wrong all this time). Guys ah, I can´t even tell you how amazing it was!!! The Spirit was SO strong and powerful!!! I was so happy to not only be edified myself, but so grateful because I knew the experience helped Shaíd so much. I´ve attached a picture of us at the temple. He´s an amazing man - such an example to me. He is so prepared and we CAN¨T WAIT for his baptism this Saturday!! Because of his paralysis, we are planning on both (Elder Rich and I) getting in the water with him for extra support as we baptize him. And yes Mom! We´re planning on doing the exact same thing as Elder Alley - using a chair in the water and everything :) So stoked.

Also happening this week, we had a multi-zone conference with President and the assistants! The message I took away from it was a needed reminder of the importance of the Book of Mormon both in teaching and in the conversion of our investigators. Good good stuff.

A tender mercy we had this week was the renewed success we started having with the Lou family! On Wednesday, we had a GREAT talk with Vielka (the mom) about her desire to change and basically how we love her and THAT´S why we want her to get baptized. I shared D&C 18: 14-16 (my mission scripture) and just bore my testimony to her that I love her and I want to have that joy with her in heaven someday, and that is why I want her to get baptized. It was spiritual. She is now onboard - we´re working on her husband - Chino Lou (I don´t know his real name - that´s just what everyone calls him. Haha...) The problem is we have to get them married before they can get baptized, and Chino hasn´t filled out the marriage papers - he´s had them for weeks. We ended up having a fast for him after reading Isiah 58 (the law of the fast), and a few days later, he agreed to finally fill them out and work with us again!!! Now if we can just help him see WHY it is important :)

So I found a new favorite chapter: Corinthians 15. It talks about the 3 kingdoms of glory, and baptism. So good!!

Ok my time is almost up so I´m gonna have to write the rest reeeeallly fast.....

1) Mom, I got your DearElder! I LOVED LOVED LOVED the letters from Elder Hyde and Garner. Elder Hyde especially´s was incredible. He is an example to me and I can´t wait to see him again someday.

2) KATIE!!!! I got to see you!! Hna. Carmen let me watch it last night on lds.org before dinner. You did amazing!!! It was really cool to see everyone there. I bet it was such an amazing experience to sing for the prophet.

3) Elder Rich became a District Leader this week!

4) Tell Nathan Garner happy b-day for me and that I remembered :)

OK fam I´m all out of time, but I will try to write more next week individually!! Mom especially - expect a letter soon.