Letter to All:
Another good week!
We´ll there were changes....Elder Ajtun got transferred, my new companion
is.....Elder Apsley....from Draper, Utah. Round two with a white
companion. He lived by the In and Out in Draper, not very far from our
home! And now all the way over here in Santo Tomás, Nicaragua. He
has 14 months in the mission; on the 9th I´ll have 17!
General Conference was unforgettable,
truly a great one. So many talks that I want so many people to hear.
They talked a lot about hope, faith, loving God, trusting in God. I
really like Elder Bednar´s talk about tithing, because he applied it to our
lives in a unique way that I hadn’t fully seen it that way before. President
Monson´s talk on Sunday was an excellent one as well. We brought 5
investigators with the help of members, as a district we brought 11!
Well things are going
well with Elder Apsely, working hard. His Spanish is pretty good. I
guess I can brush up on my English skills. I told him he´ll probably be
the new DL here when I get changed haha, we´ll see if it happens.
Friday we had maybe the
most powerful lesson of my whole mission. It was with Felix. We
showed up to his house and immediately I knew things weren´t right. I saw
a bed missing, no kids and no wife. He was alone, saddened, and confused.
He told us that Maykalin had showed up one night at 3am drunk and later
took the two kids and left. Felix didn´t know what to do, then we showed
up. When he told us I frankly had no idea what I could tell him to lift
up his spirits, because he was really down. I started to tell him, that
we all aren´t perfect and all of us make mistakes.
Then a scripture popped
into my head (spirit) Alma 34:40-41, we read it and I felt the spirit very
strongly. But he didn´t understand it completely, so we backtracked a scripture
and read 39 as well. Then he understood the message. Don´t let
Satan take advantage of you in this moment and drag you to unhappiness in your
poor and saddened estate. Have hope, continue forward, have faith, this
is a challenge; it´s a moment to grow, don´t give up. This Spirit was
rich as he began to apply the scripture to himself; he said it was a powerful
scripture. I know he felt the spirit in that moment and he felt that the
Book of Mormon was true.
Then we began to testify
of the atonement of Jesus Christ, which I had studied that morning in PMG
chapter 1, and I saw that it talked a lot about the atonement and how it is
central in this message of great hope. I told him Christ understands you
perfectly, he knows what you are feeling. Pray to him for the strength,
to clear up your mind and carry on. Pray to him fervently, harder than
ever. Then I shared Marissela´s experience (from Nandaime) how she had
asked to lord for comfort and received it.
He gave the closing prayer,
and the spirit and the love of God was so strong that we all began to have
tears streaming down our cheeks. We gave him a hug and left, allowing him
to remain in the richness of the Spirit to meditate and pray. Later on
Sunday he came to conference, and I believe many of the talks really spoke to
him, hopefully he is a home today so we can talk about it.
This experience was a
great testimony builder for me, that I have a message so important that it has
power to turn lives around. It´s not my message, I didn´t say anything,
only the Spirit spoke. The Book of Mormon is the word of God, I know this
without any doubt, and it counsels us and comforts us. The Spirit is
real. Christ died for us and gives succor to us. God is our LOVING
heavenly father. It is a joy sharing his love with others. Share
this message of peace and comfort with all!
I love you all; God
loves you a lot more, always remember to return him, this love by doing
something good to another before Christmas as one of our apostles told us in
this general conference.
Love, Elder Willden
No comments:
Post a Comment