Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Awesome week...Elder Ballard is so awesome

Hey family! so This week was one of the best weeks of my mission. It was truly incredible, first things first sorry I forgot to tell you that yesterday we had a special mission conference, where the area 70, president of the 70 Elder Rasband, and Elder Ballard, spoke in puerta varas to all of our mission. All the mission went to puerto varas to see it, BUT punta arenas and coyhaique are to far so we had to watch it through a program like skype. ha kinda a bummer but it didnt matter. IT was incredible. life changing conference. It was so cool because he was talking to our mission, I felt like he knew me so well, he was a lot more personal it was way cool, its cool how the apostles are when they talk to a smaller audience, especially missionarys. At first the skype session was going terrible, we couldnt hear anything. then us, and punta arenas knelt and prayed to god asking for him to help make it possible to listen to his apostol, minutes after we could hear perfectly, it was such a sweet, miracle. This week I have felt the spirit stronger then I have ever felt in my life. In every moment I can feel the truthfullness of my calling and of our church.

Ballard talked of the internalizing the simple doctrines and talking with EVERYONE, in every moment. I think thats great for members to understand as well, if we internalize the simple truths we believe then if we ever are faced with a time to talk to someone we can bring it to a gospel conversation with ease. The teachings of the restored gospel truly apply to all. in ANY moment.

He also talked about how each member of the church is simply a member, he mentioned that even apostles talk to people about the church in all moments, did you know that ballard served in england and stood and a high stand 720 times in his mission in plazas in front of tons of people. His daughter said that he talks to everyone about the church be it waitresses, or drivers. ANYONE. I also loved how he did practices. up at the stand he called over elder Rasband and they did a small practive of contacting an investigator. Even apostles like practicing. I loved it. He talked with so much power. As well he mentioned the power of the first vision, in all moments we should talk with confidence and tell the world what happened that morning in 1820.

He let president rappleye talk with hna rappleye talk after and the spirit was so strong, President said, I know this day changed our lives because it changed mine. He mentioned the principle of never stopping to progress. That repentance means change, and we either progress or degress.

But too compliment that amazing conference, this week we had numerous miracles. one was the audio recording of denny, an awesome guy here that was so prepared. As we testified to him of the first vision our first visit asking him if he believed it was true, he said before ever talking to the missionaries he read the book of mormon and felt something he couldnt explain, but he knew it was convincing evidence to be true. I have never met someone so prepared, and the funniest thing was that he first told us he was busy at the door, well the rest of the story of that experience is on the audio but here as well is the story in spanish, It was long and I had to write it for the history of the mission so here it is in spanish, maybe have dallan translate it or something haha.

este sabado, nosotros estabamos tocando puertas en un sector nueva, ese dia hablamos con tantas personas y hacia mucho calor, tocamos una puerta y salio un hombre. El nos conto que estaba ocupado en el momento pero por supuesto sigamos hablando con el. Hablamos de su trabajo y su familia, y de alli nos permitio pasar, El nos ofrecio jugo y cupcakes, el fue tan amable y empezamos a preguntarle muchas cosas, el nos conto que tiene muchas biblias y tiene un libro de mormon pero nunca tenia la oportunidad ni placer de compartir ni conocer misioneros, dijo su amigo de colegio hace años le dio un libro de mormon, pero igual su amigo le presto las enseñanzas de jose smith and le encantó. Empezamos a enseñarle la restauracion y durante le primera vision el espiritu fue lo mas fuerte que hemos sentido en nuestras misiones. El se acerco durante la primera vision y le preguntamos si el cree que Dios y jesucristo visitó a jose smith, El nos conto que hace años atras leyo el libro de mormon y sintio algo, y de alli no podia explicar lo que ha sentido, pero dijo que fue bien convencido que fue la verdad. Explicamos que eso fue el espiritu y invitamos a el para ser bautisado el 22 de marzo, el dijo al aprender mas que si por supuesto que si. Despues al final de la leccion el descargó la aplicacion de la iglesia para tener las escrituras en su iphone, el escogio las traducciones de la biblia por jose smith y estabamos un pocito hesitante porque esa seria un pocito mas profundo para explicar y al explicar bien sencillo el dijo, no ya se lo que es este, y yo he querido este por tanto tiempo, y se que la biblia ha sido cambiado y no es traducida correctamente, este es increible. No pudimos creer, el tambien quiso mirar un mensaje mormon de los padres. El acepto para venir a la iglesia, no assistio este domingo pero dijo proxima vez por supuesto. El espiritu fue increible. sabemos sin duda que el señor esta preparando sus hijos.

the lord has great things here in coyhaique, and we are working hard to make things possible, the book of mormon activity went great, an investigator came with his son and called us the next day and told us he wanted to watch a video about the book of mormon and said he has to read this book. He isnt very believing in god but told us he just doesnt understand why he feels so much peace in our church. We explained thats the spirit.

ha for a funny experience, since we talk to so much people we meet some awesome people interesting for sure but awesome. One group of people we contacted were from israel visiting to go camping (so many tourists here) they didnt speak spanish very well so we talked in english. They spoke hebrew though. They like matisyahu so we talked about that for a bit, then they taught me how to say my name is elder carter whats up? in hebrew haha, they were all so loving, we talked about prophets and how we have one today like they believe in moses. They got stoked about talking about that and we tried to schedule a time where we could visit them but they were just passing by. First time I taught jews on my mission, pretty cool stuff. The coolest part was we showed the photos that we have in our scriptures of there land and they got way stoked to see them. ha they then showed the holy land pìcture we have of juruselem but on there camera that they took because they live by there.

As well a hermano asked if we could help him b

uild and install a huge shelf in his room haha little did we know he just left us to do it, so we built a huge shelf from scratch, ill take a picture of it to show you.

But yep lots of stuff, love you guys a ton, hope all is well!!
Chaito!
Elder Carter


This is the famous Mate statue here in coyhaique

No comments:

Post a Comment