Standards of Excellence

Hello Family-
 

The work continues here in The Estrella Branch. I love it here. Elder Miller and I have been kept busy: 21 lessons this week. And we are blessed by a lot of very willing and strong members to assist us in them. We still have four set to be baptized the 27th. When Luz returns from Mexico, hshe and Ignacio will get married and baptized. Ignacio will receive the Priesthood right after the Holy Ghost and they should both be doing baptisms for the dead for their families within two weeks after that. The Lord really has put me right in the middle of a very miraculous time in the lives of these two people. I feel unworthy, inadequate, and like several other different missionaries should be the ones to enjoy these changes in the lives of others. But that isn't the point. The point is that they were found by Elders Cardoso, Hughes, Miller, and me through divine guidance and that we came at the right time in their eternal progression. It will be hard to ever beat the preparedness of these two wonderful people. As far as the other people go: Maria L. will be baptized, we have to take a break from Maria. That was kind of sad because that was two months of work for Elder Cardoso and me. She does not listen though. Pride is destructive! Clemente.. I love him and the C. family so much. But they do not go to church or read or... They do nothing more than let us come over and continue to lovingly listen to us. I will study hard for him and really rely on the Spirit because I want him to be baptized so bad. And for the benefit of him and his family too! Mario and Glenda are still tearing it up too. We have a FHE with them and five investigators tonight at their home. Melina is on date but stuff keeps coming up before church on sundays. As for Rene and Jose.... These two are so so strong. The great news from them this week is that BOTH of their parejas are showing good, strong, interested signs of investigating the church more. We talked to Maria H. with Jose on Thursday. I felt like we should go there even though they were our second back up plan. we went, they were both there, let us eat lunch, then we shared a spiritual thought. We invited Maria to church. She wasn't really up for the idea, but... Jose just starting bearing his testimony!!!! Jose just started barraging her with the Spirit and all the changes he has experienced and all he knows she can experience too. It was incredible. Jose is a different kind of prepared. Things have been happening to him the past 50 years that connect him us being in his life right now. He just wants to wait for his wife. It will happen. All in the Lord's time. What an unimaginable blessing it would be for me to be able to be here when that happens.

 

But... Jose had a painting job come up so he had to go work and Maria didnt want to go alone. So they will be at church next week! :)

 

Rene is doing well. He is still very interested and we gave a priesthood blessing for his wife last night with Nefi M. and she said she would love to listen to us and come to church when she gets over her surgery. It'll happen. Good stuff there.

 

I would say my only worry about this transfer is that we don't really have time to find. But I wont worry; we should be finding in everything that we do. Hopefully we can find some new investigators this week. The last couple of families were kind of duds. The lesson we had with the family of four solid awesome people on monday was loco. The Dad believes everything about the Mormon church and the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith etc., but he wont get baptized. We don't know why yet. Maybe because he's lazy. Haha. Crazy stuff. Who knows.

 

Elder Miller and I got Standards of Excellence this week. Minus the Baptisms. If the baptisms on the 27th hold then we will have them for this week and every other week this month that we get similar numbers. We are here in this area at a very spectacular time. I don't know what either of us did to deserve any of it but all it means is that we need to work our butts off. And that's what we're doing :) The Zone Leaders said that the Estrella numbers this week were higher than the other districts' numbers.

 

I want to talk about some cool things I learned about in studying this week! In Matthew 13 I read some really good aplicable parabolas. The Savior really is the perfect teacher. Part way through one his disciples interrupt him cause they want to know why he keeps teaching in parables. He basically says that people don't listen if I don't. Its true! The people we teach don't have long sttention spans and there are usually a lot of kids running around. I want to teach with analogies more and be ABLE TO RELATE the doctrine to the investigator. I am really striving to eliminate the teaching record out of my mind and teach to what they need. Not teach them something I can mark off and say that they know. Analogies.

 

This one is for Omar: John 17 is Christ's intercessory prayer. When he is praying on behalf of his apostles He talks about them being one with Him and His apostles. Basically; if the Catholics were right then our Savior would have a huge alter-ego of about 14 different personalities and would be talking to himself regularly referring to himself as Father, Simon-Barjona, John etc. many different times in the New Testament. Haha. I found it funny. I laughed out loud when I read it. They are one in purpose!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sheesh.

 

Something that I studied yesterday really shook me. I was reading Moroni's stuff in Ether 12. It was so powerful. All the Faith stuff was good but it really picked up at the end for me. The Savior tells him/us that we must first come unto Him and then will He show us our weaknesses. We have to seek after them. We have to want to know what our weaknesses are and we have to admit them. This is the key to humility. He then tells us that THEN is His grace sufficient. Then can our weaknesses be made strengths. That is last though. We have to go to our Heavenly Father in humble prayer and tell Him about how we are feeling and ask Him to strengthen us through our weaknesses. Then Moroni talks about hope and charity. He says we are nothing withough charity and then he prays, out of complete humilty, that the Gentiles may have charity because he loves them. Then it gets good. 37 and 38 are what Hyrum read to Joseph in Carthage. I cannot imagine how powerful that moment was that night in Carthage. Because the verses basically say that you have done your best. Do not worry. You have charity and you have done all you can and you have put it all on the line for me and it was only to try and bless my children. You will be blessed eternally for what you have done. Do not worry-salvation is yours. And you are not responsible for their actions or hard-heartedness. At least that's what I got out of the verses. That verse perfectly apply to Joseph and to Moroni. It was really incredible to read them. I want them to apply to me. I want to lay it all out on the line. And not just here but for the rest of my life. Our lives mount up to nothing in the eternities that follow if we didn't take up our cross and follow our savior for our lives here on earth. And what a bettter time to serve His children then when we are physically separated from Him living here on the Earth now? And what a better time when the only thing I have to think about for two years is helping his children!! Also- verse 4 is really cool too. I tried to think of how Faith can be compared to an anchor. Isn't that cool? Man I wish I had all P-day to account for my week but we have to go to Zone Activity. We have to be on time there so the ZLs can still go to their daily member dinner at 5:00 tonight. Ay-Ciray. Love You family!

 

Love, Elder Parry