Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Transferred again to Pueblo West

Dearest family,
Guess what?! I'm being transferred again!!! Weird huh? It was a total surprise to me! I'm going to Pueblo West to take the place of someone in my district who finished his mission. My companion is Elder Anderson. He's been in my district this past transfer, so I know him a little. He's a really nice guy. My previous companion, Elder Oakes, is training! It's funny, because every companion I've had has always trained right after I left. I guess I train trainers and prepare them well for greenies! :)
My heart is full at this time because of 3 main things:
-Your package and letters
-General Conference
-My realization of the blessings of the Gospel
First off, thank you so much Mom for the package you sent! I was overwhelmed with gratitude upon receiving it. The scriptures are perfect! That talk was awesome (was that highlighted by Dad?). And everything else was great! I was wondering why you sent me this other coat. It is really nice, but now it makes sense :) I'll send it back though. If it's okay I may have to wait until you send my other one though, because it is getting cold here. Mom and Dad, thank you both for your letters of your insights and experiences. It brings me such joy to read them. I'm so glad to hear about the things that you're doing to learn and live the gospel! I must whole-heartedly agree with both of you that General Conference was absolutely fantastic! It was very interesting watching it from a missionary's perspective, everything seemed to apply in some way. You perfectly listed all of the talks that were my favorites! Pres. Uchtdorf is such a great speaker/teacher with his talks about love, work, and learning. I about fell over with Elder Holland's talk/testimony. I wish that I could testify with same amount of passion and conviction. Also Elders Bednar and Scott, along with many others gave such inspired and inspiring messages. After watching that conference I can more proudly and boldly declare that I know that this church is true! I would give my life for it!
We had a very interesting experience in between the first two sessions of conference. We went out street contacting on our way to lunch and talked to a particular man who was convinced we were wrong. He was bashing us on everything he could think of. He very boldly got in our face and proclaimed that Joseph Smith, President Monson, and us missionaries were all "false prophets." We stared him straight in the eye, tried to show love and resolve his concerns, but then just testified and moved on. These experiences as a missionary are so interesting. It is strange to run across such conflict with fellow Christians, and have them flat out reject your testimony. It sure makes us need to solidify our testimonies though. The more I see different kinds of families, the more I'm so overwhelmingly grateful for the one I have! You guys are AWESOME! I will be eternally grateful for your faithfulness. Keep it up, and remember that I love you!

Excerpts: Well, we've been really working with each of our investigators to help have spiritual experiences, and it's going well. We've had a lot of really spiritual lessons this past week. They each have their own little hang ups, but with faith, work, and time, they'll come out successful in the end.
MIRACLE Stories:This week when we had planned teamups with the high priests we were surprised with two brethren who came to help. That blessing allowed us to teach the lesson we had planned, and Elder Oakes also took one of them to go see some PM/LA families. Shane Bennedict's mother is a member, but they haven't really been coming very much. After visiting with them, Shane and her mother's boyfriend both agreed to take the lessons!We were able to get one of our investigators, Robert Tafoya, to the Priesthood session of conference. His girlfriend, Jenny, watched the other sessions and took very copious notes. We talked to them yesterday and both of them have had good experiences. There was an incident on Sunday where Robert remember Pres. Monson's counsel against anger, and he heeded that counsel by responding well to a contentious circumstance. During the same visit, Jenny bore her testimony to all of us. It was so powerful! We were so extremely happy to see the Gospel take real effect in blessing their lives!Another experience that I had, which was such a blessing to me happened a while back. Upon transferring to another area, I was reading in "The Messenger" and saw the news that one of our previous investigators, Tim Whitty, had been baptized. It filled my heart with joy and gratitude! I'm so grateful to a part of continuous work where we're all working together for the salvation of souls!

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