San Vicente
Oh my gosh, the meeting with Elder Bednar was amazing. He taught us so many things that we can improve on that we are not doing. First of all we had to leave at like 1 in the morning to get on the bus and tried to sleep a little on the way there. It was like 6 hours but I didn’t count because I was out the whole time. We got there and we saw all the people from our district in the MTC, that was sweet. Then we entered and prepared ourselves for the experience of a lifetime. We all were sitting there and we all stood up and he walked in. There was a different feeling when he entered. First of all he stood up and said “Ok, I am going to tell you a few things that you should not do in this meeting.” He said don’t try to take notes and copy down word for word what I say. He asked us, "How many of you took notes at the conference? How many of you have used those notes or even know where they are?” It is so very true. We copy down exactly what they say when we should be writing down what the spirit tells us. That is what he told us. And it wasn’t like he was talking the whole time. We had questions and answers. Wow, he and the presidente of the bishopric and a few others answered the questions so thoroughly. It was amazing. They also asked us to read his talk from the conference 2 weeks before and he asked us questions about it. It’s called ask in faith. That really is one of my favorite talks. I loved the example in Joshua 3 when the people are taking the arc of the covenant across the river and it had been promised to them that the water would stop in its place so that they could cross on dry ground. That was the promise. But the interesting part is that it says in one of the verses that the got their feet wet first!! They didn’t just wait until the water stopped. They had to act first, they had to show that they had faith in the promise, and after they had gotten their feet wet, the water stopped!!!! That is the sweetest comparison I think. That is how our faith grows. He also talked a lot about how the people we teach are not objects, they are agents. We can’t treat them like objects, they have to make their own decisions and we have to help them to make that decision. He said that right now we are preparing ourselves to teach our kids to act for themselves. He said many times we are those who are holding back our investigators. We hold their hands and bring them to the church every Sunday and help them with just about everything. Which is not bad, but in order to build their faith, they have to do and learn for themselves. They told us to "get out of the way." I began to think about how I would teach my kids so that they could act for themselves because I want them to learn for themselves. I don’t want them to do everything just because I tell them to. And I started to think, if I am teaching the people as if they were my children would I teach them like I am teaching my investigators right now? I think I need to change a few things so that I get out of the way and let them act. He also said that everything that we receive from the spirit, we need to bind ourselves in all holiness to do the things that we have received. Something that really caught my attention was when he talked about all the elders who are speaking a new language and how some of us feel like we speak well now and so we quit depending on the Lord and start to depend on the flesh.! He said we were better teachers when we couldn’t speak the language because we depended more on the Lord. Now I think that I have fallen a little bit into that. I think at times that my Spanish is good and I can handle it. But if I don’t trust in the Lord to help me, I am only trusting in the flesh. You want to know what he said about that? That it is PRIESTCRAFT!!!!!! Watch out. So basically I am repenting for the things that I should have been doing that I wasn’t. And he said to that as a teacher or in any situation in life if we have already seen it before we say to ourselves that we know how to handle it. But that is preistcraft. We are trusting in ourselves thinking that we can do it all. Maybe the Lord wants us to handle this situation a little bit differently. Really in EVERYTHING that we do we need to call on the Lord to know what to do.
He also said that we need to BE Preach My Gospel. We don’t just study Preach My Gospel, we need to be it right now and after the mission. I am never going to stop spreading this gospel, even when I am an old feller. It’s like when Joseph Smith used the urim and thumim to translate, at first he needed it to translate but after he didn’t need it, he could just see the letters and translate. It is the same with Preach My Gospel. We may need to study it a little more at first, but there should come a time when we don’t need it, we can live it and we can do our work. One question was asked about obedience. It was “Why do those who are obedient and those who are not as obedient have the same results?” Because sometimes that does happen. Elder Bednar said that sometimes we don’t see the results because God knows that we can handle it. He said that Zions camp is a great example. They didn’t achieve their purpose but he said that some of the men from Zions camp turned out to be apostles. He said that this work is about preparing for the future of the church. Sometimes we don’t receive much success but we have to trust in the will of the Lord.
I also finished the BOM this week and it was amazing!!!! I learned so many new things that I didn’t know before and I am starting it again. I mostly learned about charity. It is so much more than we think it is. I also learned that we can sanctify ourselves and receive witness just as the brother of Jared. But in order to do that we have to do a few things. Like it says in Moroni 10:32, 33 it tells us how we can perfect ourselves. We abstain ourselves from every little thing that is bad. We quit thinking about ourselves and we are washed clean through the atonement!! It is something so real that we can have, but many times people say that, oh--that is in the BOM, that could never happen to me. That is so wrong. I am starting again and I have already learned so many new things.
We have 2 baptisms for the end of this month. They actually contacted us and said, hey come by tomorrow. So we went and they had already been taught but she worked on Sundays and now she doesn’t. We are going to baptize her and her son. So basically we hardly did anything but the Lord put them in our way.
All the pictures are gone, mom. So I will start saving them in different places. But I love you all so very much and am thankful for all of your prayers. Keep reading the BOM. And keep testing your faith. Do things that you have not done before, and you will see that the Lord will do His part, all we have to do is take that step into the dark and then He will come to light the way.
Elder Mahas
