Baptisms, Spanish Work, News From Home

Buenos dias a todos!                    23 April 2012

Chad's Father would NOT like this!
He is afraid of Heights!

Well this week has been a really rewarding week here in Emery County. We have seen a bunch of good things come to pass and we are working hard and looking forward to seeing the many miracles that the Lord has in store for us. Well last Monday we actually took a trip out to the desert. It was a pretty cool trip with a lot of neat sights. We went out to a place called "The Wedge". It is a point that looks out into this huge canyon that ironically has the name "The Little Grand Canyon". I am attaching some pictures from there and letting you experience the beauty of Utah. But it was quite a fun time and we were able to have some other Elders come out and experience with us. Utah is a very diverse and beautiful state.

          Well,  I will now get into the week that included all the missionary service. We found this super amazing guy named Bruno this week. He is from Chihuahua. It was pretty cool to teach him and he was really open. We had a great lesson with him at the beginning of the week and we taught him about the Restoration and about the Book of Mormon. We gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon and he only handled it with his right hand (that is a key fact for this next part). We then invited him to read and pray about it. The next day we went back and had another really good lesson. At the end of the lesson, I followed up with his reading and praying. He then looked at me and said, "Well last night I had a dream. Can I share it with you?" So of course I let him share it, but I never thought that it would be as amazing as what he told me. I hope I can relate a little bit about the dream that he had. He said that in his dream he had a cast on his right arm that went from the middle of his forearm to his shoulder. The crazy thing is that this cast was made of pure gold and was brighter then any gold he had ever seen before. Just then his brother shows up and says, "Hey let's go down to the mine and work." So they get in the truck and head down to the mine and are about ready to go in when his brother stops him. He then says, "You can't go into a mine with gold on your arm." So Bruno quickly responded, "Don't worry, I will just take it off." So he started to take it off and he got it all the way down and it was almost all the way off his arm and it broke into a bunch of pieces. So Bruno bent down and picked up all the pieces and filled up a huge zip-loc bag(that is the best translation I could get). He then picks up the bag and starts heading to the mine, when his brother stops him again. His brother then says, "Bruno, why are you going into a mine, when you already have what you are looking for in your hand?" This was the thing that hit him the most. He said at that moment he knew that the Book of Mormon was true and that is what he had been looking for all his life. The Lord truly has prepared this man! We had some many great and wonderful lessons with Bruno last week, but there is one problem. He was only up here for a little while, and he ended up going back to Chihuahua last Saturday. I am super bummed. But I did get his address and we are going to send the missionaries to him there and I know he will get baptized. He took down my info and said, "We are now friends forever, don't ever forget that!" He is such a great man!

          This week has been filled with a lot of Spanish work. I am pretty excited about that. My Spanish was doing really well this week, but my English was not. We did a lot of Spanish work in the afternoon, so when it came time to do all the English lessons in the evening, my mind was still working in Spanish.

          We also had zone conference this week. It was a good one. It was filled with great information - the only bad part was the long distance that we had to travel to get there. We had to travel about 2 hours to a city called Richfield. But it was a good experience and I was able to see a lot of missionaries that I know.
          The highlight of the week was the TWO baptisms that we had here. The weird thing is that I haven't had a baptism that has run smoothly in a long time. There is always something that comes up. This time we had everything set up and ready to go for the font in Castledale, but we got a call saying that there was something wrong with the font in Castledale, so we had to move the baptism to Ferron. It was such a fiasco to work out. Well the first baptism was for a 12 year old girl named Aubrie. She has been taught for a while, but this is the date that finally worked for all of her family. Her baptism was quite cold. There was a women's conference going on in the Ferron Stake Center, so we weren't allowed to get in there until about 12:30pm and the baptism was scheduled for 1. We filled the font as fast as we could, so the water turned out freezing. (it wasn't super cold, only about 75 degrees or so). Well the baptism went really well, but I just have one regret for it. It wasn't until about 10 minutes before the baptism that we discovered that the women's conference had a special speaker, Elaine S. Dalton, the General Young Women's President of the Church. (That is pretty amazing!)  Since we were baptizing a young woman we thought how awesome would that be to have her come to the baptism. It was just our luck that when we asked someone, we were told Sister Dalton left about 10 minutes before that. I guess you just can't have everything, right?
          The second baptism was for a lady named Priscilla. She is who I have talked about before and how she has been super prepared. Her baptism was a lot warmer then the first since we had more time to fill the font. Her baptism was amazingly Spiritual as well. As she was baptized and came up out of the water she was just overcome with the Spirit and just started to shed tears of joy. It was super special. She is going to be such a great member of the Church. She knows that her tasks aren't done yet, and that she is still focused on making it to the Temple in a year from now. It has been really amazing to teach both of these daughters of God and to help them enter into His fold. I am excited because the work of the Lord is never done and we are still preparing more people for baptism in the coming weeks.
NEWS FROM HOME:  We found out this week that Chad's father who thought he was cancer free, has had his cancer return.  We agonized how to tell Chad and not disrupt the remaining 4 months of his mission, but it couldn't be helped.  Chad had asked us previously that if anything happened to his father we would tell him and not keep it from him.  We were able to talk with his Mission President and received permission to talk with him and update him on his father's situation. Darin will hopefully have radical treatment through the University of Washington in the near future.)

          Well now it is onto the tough stuff. It was pretty tough to hear about Pops and his cancer again. I am glad that you told me and that you were able to let me know as soon as possible. Thank you for that! I have been thinking a lot about this, and have found a lot of peace throughout it all. It isn't an easy thing to hear, but it is a little easier to hear when I heard it once last year. That isn't to say that I am not concerned for him or his well being, just that I am a little more at peace this time.  I have come to understand about the Lord and His plan. He is the one that knows everything and obviously He knows better than we do. I have complete trust and faith in Him that He can do miracles and that His will is what will be done. I know that the Gospel is true and that through the Restored Priesthood authority and sealing power families can be together forever. I know my family is an eternal family and that no matter what happens, we will always be just that.

The WORLD AWAITS!!

        This morning I was studying about "adversity" and I came across a verse in the Doctrine and Covenants that really helped me out a lot. It is in D&C 58:2-4, it says, "For verily I say unto you, blessed is he that keepeth my commandments, whether in life or in death; and he that is faithful in tribulation, the reward of the same is greater in the kingdom of heaven. Ye cannot behold with your natural eyes, for the present time, the design of your God concerning those things which shall come hereafter, and the glory while shall follow after much tribulation. For after much tribulation come the blessings. Wherefore the day cometh that ye shall be crowned with much glory...." I know that these things are true.  Even though we are going through trials right now, there are greater blessings awaiting for us. And whether the blessings will come in this life or the life to come, they will definitely come, but we just cannot see these things with our natural eyes. The Lord is always there and He continues to be a God of miracles! I love you all so much!

Live it, Love it, Preach it!    de tu hijo amado y con muchismo amor!

ELDER D