So we spent the last two days just watching conference at the chapel. All three Saturday sessions and both Sunday sessions. I'd have to say my favourites were Saturday morning and Saturday afternoon. Elder Holland gave such an inspiring talk on Saturday, as he usually does. President Uchtdorf also gave a really good talk in that same session I think. Talking about how we should slow down in life sometimes when the going gets tough. We don't want to overwhelm ourselves when bad stuff happens because that just makes it worse. I still can't believe I never used to watch the Saturday sessions back home, those always seem to be the best ones. I'm so thankful for our prophet though. You can definitely tell from the love that he has for each and every one of us reflects the love that God has for each and every one of us as well. You can hear it in his words and see it in his face.
This past week we taught Evelyn twice. The first time didn't go so well. Well it went well, but we learned that she has a lot of concerns and she's not anywhere close to baptism. We brought with us Caleb Simpkins who was able to talk to them in Tagalog. We found out that it's not only the language barrier that keeps her from talking to us, but she really is just super shy. I felt really useless in that lesson though because basically Caleb was just reteaching everything that we had already taught her in Tagalog. And then after the lesson he said that she just wasn't ready yet. We had been planning on committing her to baptism in that lesson as well. It's going to be awhile before that can happen. Caleb reckons if she keeps going to church and reading the Book of Mormon with Arturo and if we keep coming over to teach, she'll be ready someday down the road. And yesterday when we taught them again we saw that already starting to come true. Yesterday we finally got the Tagalog reading materials for her and so we went over the first part of the restoration. Starting with God is our loving heavenly father and teaching her all about Christ's earthly ministry and then the apostasy. We had her read the part about apostasy in her own language and I could finally see a light of understanding in her eyes. It was just amazing. I really hope that we can just keep that up and start to see great changes in her life. I really love Arturo and Evelyn and I think that's why I want to see her get baptised, because I know that would make Arturo so happy and I want that happiness for him. It's the happiness that comes from families being in and living the gospel. There's no other happiness in the world that can beat it or even match it.
We saw Angela this week and it looks like we're going to be doing her baptism in the ocean. She wouldn't budge on getting baptised in a font. We even talked to her about how the chapel is a dedicated house of the Lord and she would be able to have a really spiritual experience there, we tried to get her to feel the spirit in that, but we failed. Then we read Moroni 6:1-4 and talked about the requirements for baptism. Mainly being humbled and having a broken heart and contrite spirit. It's hard to tell if she's really ready for baptism, but I guess we'll find out when we have the baptismal interview in the next couple of weeks. And we just gotta keep teaching her and helping her to feel the spirit in the things we say.
We had a Zone meeting on Friday and it was really good. The Zone Leaders challenged the whole zone to tract every day at 4 o clock and begin with a prayer. So the first day we did that we didn't find any new investigators but we still had a really amazing experience. The first street that Elder Jack chose I told him that I didn't really feel good about that street so he chose another one and we decided to go to that one. The very first door that we knocked on somebody came to the door that we already knew. It was Loraine Brennan. I don't remember if I ever told you about her but she's way less active and she's really trying to get her life in order right now. But she was at this house and she was getting it shown to her by the Realtor. It was a really nice house too compared to what she was living in before. Her house before was basically falling apart. But basically if we hadn't knocked on that door on that precise day at that precise time, we probably would've never found her again because I think she's moving out tomorrow. I think with an experience like, you can't deny that the church is true and the we are not alone in this work.
I love being in the work of the Lord and I try to better myself in it every day. Some days can be harder than others but I always think of Christ on those days and know that he will help me. Even if I can't tell at the time, he will always help me.
Love yous! Have a Tremendolishious week!
Elder Tanner
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