Monday, June 24, 2013

June 17th 2013 Stephanie



                                                          June 17th, 2013


Family I have felt the joy that Ammon and all the sons of Mosiah felt. This week was incredible. Ok, we baptized Gustavo and Mauricio 2 Saturdays ago and then had the great opportunity to baptize a FAMILY!!!! The familia Lara. They are so special they have been waiting for 8 to 9 months to get married and then get baptized. They have had so many challenges and problems even more leading up to the baptisms. I have seen Satan working against us (it really is a war). They finally were able to get baptized and they were..... are so happy. The father was having second thoughts. He didn't want another interview and was sick and tired of fighting so hard to get baptized but his faith won out.  After his baptism he walked up to us and he started to cry. He took us by the hand and he said tell Hermana Call, Hermana.....he named every single Hermana that helped him and his family and then he thanked us and still all while crying this grown man ...we of course were crying as well. He told us to thank our family ....and at this time I was bawling and he said thank them for sending you and thank you for choosing to serve a mission. Family that night was perfect I never have felt the spirit more strongly and the love of God more fully in my life and in the lives of others. Me and Hermana Messina went home and we cried together. We knelt and prayed and thanked God so much for what we were feeling and the blessing we had and the opportunity to help his children he was giving us. Family this work is worth everything we can give. This gospel is true and there are people that are waiting to understand it and be blessed by it. I don’t have too much time today. We had started today at 10. We had two lesson in the morning and we have 5 today. It’s a Monday!!! We love working and I have never felt more tired or  happy.
    I need your prayers a lot for me. I am realizing the magnitude of what our President is expecting for us sister training leaders and well I am feeling very inadequate and well not really knowing what I am doing. I need the spirit more with me to help the people I am visiting. So please keep me in your prayers that I can be all that the people around me need me to be to help them and help others.
    Also we are teaching a man ... ,family, I love this investigator more than any other I have had. He has a sad story and has done some bad ...really bad things in the past and he is changing so much now that he has the restored gospel. He can’t get baptized because he has not passed the interview with the Elders and the President of our mission and he had his first interview a year ago. He has been coming to church and been active for a year.  He is now trying to pass another interview. I admire him so much. It has not been easy for him to come to church and stay active but he has done it.  He wants so so so bad to get baptized and he is willing to do anything. The thing is he hasn’t truly felt Godly sorrow yet. When he had his interview and... he needs more time but he has this week. This week we are seeing him every day. Many times two times a day and we are talking about repentance, atonement, and Godly sorrow. We had a great lession with him today where we were really blunt with him and by the end of the lession he said something that hit me and Hermana Messina hard. We both just started to cry. After trying to make him realize the gravity of his sins and what it was that he needed to do to be forgiven.....he said  " how come ... how come it is so easy to sin and so hard to repent.... we cried because we know he wants to do everything in his power to change and he sometimes just doesn’t understand how to do it. But we feel like he is getting it. Please keep him in your prayers, he will be having his next interview this weekend on Saturday and we hope then he will pass to have his interview with President. Family I am leaning so much of repentance and the atonement. Right now we are going where he is and we are trying to feel what he feels to help him know what else he needs to do I have never come to love someone more. It is the same love Christ feels for us. He has been where we have been and knows how to help. We just need to choose to come to him. Family stay close to the gospel......read more fervently, pray more sincerely, fast more often and help others at every opportunity. It is what true joy is. 
    I know Christ lives. I have seen him in the lives of the people I teach and I will always be a witness of his goodness and mercy. He loves us ......so much and my love for his is growing each and everyday 
Love you family, 
Hermana Hale  

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