This week was pretty awesome!! Mom those were my baptismal pants on that little man in the picture! That was a pretty awesome story! His name is Tito and we found him a couple of weeks ago. He lives in his sisters house and is super poor. Anyways his sister told him that if he got baptized, she would boot him out of the house. So he came to us super worried, didn't know what to do but we helped him feel comfort and we said a pray and the little man just put his trust in god and got baptized!! he went with out a home for I think two nights but his sister softened up and now hes back to living there with her!
This Picture was on the mission page this week, so I had sent it to Braxton in my letter, The young man next to him is who he is referring too.
So one of our Investigators is a trash collector and his horse pulls him around in his "garbage truck" and this week we found him and he said he was on his way to the river to wash his horse, so we hopped up and rode with him down to the river. When we got there, the border patrol was over on the other side so I sang, "Hello From The Other Side" ha ha! they were like, "hey ya'll Jehovah witnesses?" and I said, "No we're MORMONS!!!" ha ha! and then our investigator starts yelling over "take him back, take him back!!!" ha ha! he was just kidding though.
You can see the U.S. Boarder Patrol in their boats on the other side of the Rio Grande.
That's who Braxton was singing to.
Yesterday in church, in the gospel principles class we talked about the "convent people" There is a new missionary that just got here like a month ago that is giving the classes. The dude has only been out for one month yet he is a powerful teacher. Anyways something that he said that i really liked was that a herd of sheep only recognize the the voice of their shepherd. So if some other dude tried calling them over, they wouldn't come unless it was the voice of their shepherd. The covenant people recognize the voice of their shepherd, its a familiar voice. So when we share the gospel, the chosen recognize the message, it is something familiar to them.
I've come to know how important the preparation for a mission is. There are missionaries that have such little time but are so powerful because of their preparation before. Knowledge is power. If i would have just payed attention or at least gone to seminary, it would have made me a more effective missionary. I hope Bronson, Hollie, Britton and Miriah are reading this. Bronson, if you were anything like me, you probably didn't get much out of seminary, i hope you did but if not, you got a little bit of time to prepare yourself to go. I've set the goal to memorize all the scripture mastery from all four books before I get home. So if i can do it, you can do it. I promise that you will use those scriptures on your mission. if you study them now, they will come to your mind when you are teaching somebody on your mission and you'll know just where they are so you can use the scriptures to convince people that this message is true. don't be like me and think that you will learn it all on your mission. if you do it now, you'll be that much more powerful.
We have been teaching a lady that has been in teaching for about 20 years now. She, as a matter of fact, is the bishops mother-in-law. She has read the book of Mormon, she get ensigns every month and she even went to Monterrey to see the temple but for some reason she still hasn't accepted to be baptized. She believes that the Book of Mormon is really great and knows that it explains things really clearly and invites you to do good but she wont accept that Joseph Smith was a prophet. She says that she has prayed. and I know that God has already answered her prayer. I know that deep down within her she knows that this is true and I have come to one conclusion: It is her PRIDE. A great talk came to mind by one of the prophets about pride. I studied it over this week To see how i might be able to help this lady but while studying it over, i found out just how prideful of a person I am. I have a lot of repenting to do. Here are a few of my notes:
"It is the pride of the nephite nation that has been the cause of its great destruction" Moroni 8:27
"The pride is the great tripping stone in Zion"
"pride is something that is easy to see in others but rarely something we admit of ourselves"
"what makes us prideful is comparison, the joy of putting ourselves above others"
"The prideful love more the glory of men than the glory of god"
"the prideful fear the judgments of men more than the judgments of god"
"the prideful want god to be in agreement with them but have no intentions of changing opinions so that they are in agreement with god"
"the prideful need the world to say if they are good enough or not"
"The prideful are not only those who put themselves above others but also those who are below looking up saying, "you are successful so i am a failure"
I did a self evaluation while I was reading and I found that I'm definitely guilty of being prideful. maybe I should repent first before calling that lady to repentance of her pride fullness. In the scriptures it talks how little children will have eternal life because they are submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love and willing to submit to all things that the lord seeth fit to inflict upon him. Mosiah 3:19 he later says that this is a condensation sin. But that we can repent by humbling ourselves.
Anyways that's a bit of what happened this week! I love you all!! Hollie HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 16! stay safe on the road!!
Elder berry
I love the seminary advice! My son gave the same advice to his siblings when he was on his mission. I LOVE missionaries and what they learn and what they share!
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