Week 79 - The Week(s) of the Holidays!

Sorry for the delay in forwarding Bryant's letters.  He didn't send one on Christmas Day - we just had a long visit with the whole family during his call.  This is his New Year's Day letter.  This week's letter will be coming shortly!

Hey all! Sorry I didn't write last week, I didn't have as much time as usual and I wanted to take advantage of the fact that I had all of my family at home for Christmas at the same time. 

 

Well, as I said in my last letter my companion now is Elder Prado from Ecuador and he is super awesome! He is super energetic, loves to work, and his English is almost perfect. It's a little difficult for him to pronounce things, but his vocabulary is incredible! 

 

C. finally came to church and told us about the desires she has to be baptized. We had a really good charla with her explaining the importance of it, the blessings that come, and what she would have to do in order to achieve it. She now has a baptismal date set for January 11th! We are so excited for her, she really has put in an amazing effort in the last 2 weeks to prepare herself! 

 

P. also came to church on Sunday, which was incredible! I imagined it would be really hard for her to get up in the morning. We couldn't get her brother E. to go though, apparently he's harder to wake up. Haha! We'll work with him though!

 

We also had a District Leader Conference in Montevideo this week which was super awesome. We had lots of training about how to be better leaders and I think the things that were mentioned were very useful and I left that conference with lots of new ideas about how I may better serve the missionaries in my district.

 

We also had a Multi-zone Conference that was super amazing. I wish I could share everything that was talked about in that conference because there was so much that applies to all of life and not just the mission. On that note, at the end I will share a couple things that President Dunford taught us. 

 

With Elder Prado, we've been able to find a lot more people to teach recently, so things are starting to go really well here in my area because we finally have a decent sized pool of people to teach!

 

President Dunford talked to us about the doctrine of "remembering". President Dunford used to be the Stake President over a Stake in Pennsylvania that had the responsibility of taking care of the Priesthood Restoration Site in Church History. He said that he had the opportunity to talk to an Elder of the Seventy, whose name escapes me, who said that "Remembering is a doctrine of the Gospel. It is a principle of salvation." Sadly, I won´t be able to share everything with you, nor do I have my notebook to give all the scripture references for it, but basically he reminded us of the baptismal covenant of "Always remember Him" and he explained that if we were capable of always remembering him than we would be able to always stay obedient to the commandments and stay on the right path. He told us to never forget what Christ had done for us. He made our mission motto "Recordarle Siempre" (Always Remember Him).  One thing I've been doing to try and "Always Remember Him" Is memorize "The Living Christ" and it has been such a wonderful experience for me! I invite you all to find some way in this new year to "Always Remember Him" more this year than you did last year.

 

I love you all! Nos vemos!

 

-Elder Martin