October 7, 2013

Conference was so special this broadcast. I wrote a lot about it in my letter I'm sending you, but I'll tell you that every talk had so much spiritual power behind it. Elder Uchtdorf was phenomenal, but I actually also really enjoyed Ulisses Soares, a 70 from the first session. His talk on meekness was really good.

So there's some bad news. We have to delay N and K's baptisms a week. So instead of the 12th, they'll be on the 19th. The reason, most simply, is that they don't have the church attendance they need. So frustrating! But accepting the Lord's will (and the zone leaders will) is what we're doing. And they're so prepared. When we were explaining to K about why the delay of his interview was happening, he was bummed! He was like, “Man! I stayed up last night memorizing the things you can't put in your body because of the Word of Wisdom!" So he's set. And N is really excited about his baptism still too, he came out to Priesthood session on Saturday. Said he thought it was super cool. 

Oh yeah and the other baptism we have on the 19th is K. Can't remember if I've talked about him, but basically he's the definition of a golden investigator. Comes to church and ward activities almost every week, and is very accepting of what we teach. He's a podiatrist, doing his residency actually, so he's super busy with all the odd jobs they give him. But he's really great. It's pretty incredible looking at how God has prepared him for us. He grew up with some Mormon friends, and he would have moved to Texas had he not gotten denied from the program there. So he came to Harrisburg, where he saw the church building and decided to stop in. So that's how he met the missionaries! And that program he wanted in Texas just got shuttered, so you can really see how he's been blessed to be here! Man, missionary work is so cool!

 So Wednesday was crazy! We had a bunch of team ups with the ward, so I was out with another member (Brother T) but not my companions. So we taught B (a less active) about Christ like attributes, and she wasn't really getting into it. She then told us about a lot of struggles she was having right now, and that she had a tumor on her neck. Not cancerous, but giving her crazy migraines. I immediately cut the lesson short and we gave her a priesthood blessing. She had faith in it, and said immediately that she felt better, and more at peace with herself. So that was pretty cool. Our next appointment was W, who is married to a less active, S. They both speak Spanish. Brother T doesn't. So I was understandably nervous. I really had to trust the Spirit as I taught the lesson on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was amazing though. I was filled with inspiration and words and sentences, even verb conjugations, flowed out of me that I certainly could not have remembered on my own. I then invited him to be baptized later in November. He said that he would, and that he would pray about the date. That was so cool. I felt spiritually exhausted by the time the night was over. It was a testimony builder for me of the power of the Holy Spirit.

Elder Wright