week 87

Hola mis queridos amigos! This week was quite the whirlwind staring off with transfers like always, but what made it really hard was that with all the changes our area book application deleted all 600 of our friends profiles. We tried everything to get them back, called every thinkable person that might be able to help, and all it led to was us sending in a long, detailed report to the Global Services Department in Salt Lake. The next day I got an email sayingg a case for my inquiry was created, and that we would be contacted shortly, but it's been a week now and we haven't heard anything! For those reading this that aren't familiar with the area book app, what happened to us is basically like losing every contact you've ever made on your phone. And since contacting people is all we do, it's like losing your job. We felt really lost for what to do at first, but it turned into lots of Facebook finding and starting conversations with people that are in the same groups as us. Meanwhile we have been creating profiles in area book for as many friends we can remember and reporting everything we can remember about past lessons with them. All we had was a whiteboard with around 25 names to go off of. So yeah, that was the start of our week! We had finished drawing the lines for the new district and re-drawing the lines for our other 2 districts in our zone and we hoped that once the lines showed up in area book, that our friends would show up too, but yesterday the lines finally came and we still had only 3 people in our areabook (all three of which were new people we found on Facebook this week). But apart from that huge setback, our week was fantastic!

Tuesday: 

Today something really sad happened that made me pretty angry. In the morning/afternoonish I recieve a text from Liliana, and older lady we are teaching. She asks me "Do the Sister missionaries ask for money?" (you have to remember that these hispanic people are so nice and trust us so much) "because some sisters are asking for money so send to someone who needs it in the Dominican Republic. Is this true or spam?". I Immediately said "No not us nor the hermanas will ever ask for money, it is definitely a trap. Send them a text that says you know they are not the hermanas." We immediately called the hermanas and asked them about their WhatsApp, and when they tried to enter is was blocked. Meanwhile Liliana sent me screenshots of their conversation and it was sickening how the person was using emoji's and mimicing the hermanas way of talking to ask for money. We called a few leaders, and Presidente Matos got in contact with the Police and President Bush got in contact with WhatsApp to get their account recovered. As soon as they got it back they called all of their contacts to see if they had recieved texts from them in the last few hours. Unfortunately many of them had and two of their friends actually paid the scammer. The hermanas felt terrible and we felt so bad for them. We called and thanked our friend Liliana for exposing the scammer and she felt really bad for the hermanas too. But the situation was resloved eventually and the work continues!

Wednesday:

The highlight of today was definitely District Council! Our district is so different after transfers and I am so proud of our district leader because he is doing such a great job. I'll put a picture in the bottom of all of us :)

All of our proselyting time today was spend calling members and Faebook finding (because we have no areabook:(

Elder Douglas played the Guitar for a bit after 9 today and he's really good! He also played the uke pretty well, and he's teaching me some good chords. It's going to be such a fun transfer!

Thursday:

I officially turn 20 months old in the mission! We made the buffalo ranch chicken in the crock pot again to celebrate so the house was smelling SO good. From 6:30 to 9 we had 5 lessons and every single one went through! It is so awesome being able to teach with such unity and know and trust that your companion will be able to pick up literally anywhere that you drop off. The lesson with Hermana Cover was especially espiritual as she told us of her mission and her current efforts to share the gospel and the rejection she recieves because of it. I was able to share a verse I had read that morning in 1 Pedro 4:13 to help her with those feelings of rejection. Then we talked about Alma and Amulek and the power of the testimony of the members and it was great.

Also the lesson with Alexander was incredible! We read another chapter in the Book of Mormon with him and answered all his questions. Then afterwards, he said that he was going to keep reading after the call to be in 2 Nefi 9 by tomorrow! 

Friday:

Today we were GOING to have service in the morning, but it started snowing so we couldn't drive. But then we realized it would only be a 15 ish minute walk, so we got permission and walked to the service! We were the only ones there though, so it wasn't quite as fun as normal, but hey, it's a heck of a lot better than being stuck in the house!

I'm running out of time again, so I'm going to skip to Sunday night because there was a MIRACLE that happened! On Firday Alexander had canceled, but we rescheduled it for tonight, an when we called, we started talking to Alexander, and then Nancy walked in and sat down in the camera next to him!!! After that we finished the Plan of Salvation, and talked about marraige and read some parts of "The Family: A Proclamation to the World" and got to know them and their goals better. It was such a good conversation and then we had to bring up the factt that they don't live in  our area and so other Elders would have to continue teaching him. When he asked why, Elder Streiff said that it was becasue of a separation in the church (a new branch was being created) but Alexander misinterpreted it and thought that we were separating from the church in Manassas and becoming Elders of a different church in Chantilly. I stepped in an explained that it wasn't a separation, but a growth that required a new building. I explained how the church is world-wide and we are still missionaries of the same, true church, and then he asked "can I go to the one you guys go to then?" and We tried explaining to him that no, he should go to the building that covers the area where he lives, but then he said that he lives in Centerville now and that the building in Chantilly is closer to his house!!!!!!! We all just sat there in silence realizing that we wouldn't have to pass him off to other Elders and then just celebrated a whole bunch! I am so EXCITED to see those two in person at church WOOHOOO!!!

A quick spiritual thought: 

This week one of our friends sadly said something along the lines of "If the true church of Jesus Christ was upon the earth, it would be so full of goodness that people would automatically flock to it, there would be no need for missionaries to proselytize.”

I thought about that quite a bit this week and have come to accept that his comment was just pretty naive and uninformed. Think about it, when the Savior was on the earth, even though he attracted some curious crowds from time to time, He did not find a massive following that could be sustained by itself. He himself had to call missionaries to go throughout the world to proselyte and find those who were ready to receive the gospel. And, ultimately, He was rejected and yielded his life to the angry misguided crowds.

Every day as missionaries (and members of Christ's church) we are called upon to suffer some degree of rejection for the Savior, Jesus Christ. That reality is not easy and it’s not pleasant. People are not generally “flocking” to our message. In those moments when it seems hard and unfair, we can remember the Savior’s promise to us, that “if any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.” (Matthew 16: 24-25)

With lots of love,

Elder Hilton

week 86

Good Monday morning everyone! Here's a little bit of my week!

Tuesday:

Early in the morning we picked up Elder Streiff from his SLC excursion to sign his Visa papers, and on the way home we got a car wash. We didn't know the difference between all the options so we picked the cheapest one and they still cleaned everything from the mats to the inside windows, dash, and trunk! Then while we were waiting for the car to finish, we talked to the lady at the cashier inside and she was so impressed with our Spanish! When she learned that we were missionaries, she asked if we had any pamphlets or pass-along cards and we all patted ourselves down and of course we didn't and we felt pretty bad, but we promised her we'd come back for the next car wash with some. She gave us her phone number and everything! Back at home lots of other awesome stuff happened, but I'm going to skip to 8:30 pm to the lesson with Alexander. It was INCREDIBLE! We invited his wife Nancy and she was pretty reluctant, but out of respect for Alexander's invitation she decided to give us a few minutes of her time. Alexander had just finish 2 Nefi 2 in his personal BOM reading study and we were teaching the first half of the Plan of Salvation and it turned out AMAZING. Never have I ever taught those principles so clearly and simply and Nancy was nodding her head and by the end of the lesson she was participating so much and Alexander was answering her questions CITING THINGS FROM THE BOOK OF MORMON. We eventually ran out of time, and she wanted to hear the rest so we told her we could meet again Thursday of Friday night and she chose Thursday. I'm so excited for her

Wednesday:

I sadly did not have time to write in my Journal today, but I remember we had a spontaneous lesson with Pedro who's our age living in the States by himself for 5 years now with the rest of his family in Guatemala... His oldest sibling had passed away a while back and he struggles being positive because he has no job and has been trying to find one since last year. We shared with him Russel M Nelson's video of the healing power of Gratitude afterwards and we hope that helps him out.

We also found a new guy to teach who works in Restoration (construction) and he is a very funny and talkative guy. Seriously sometimes it just amazes me how open and awesome hispanics are. It's something from their culture that I hope to incorporate into my future family. But anyway I remember that we also had a lesson of the Word of Wisdom with Tomás and Lesli that night and when we went throught the things we avoid one by one Lesli gasped and covered her mouth and looked back and forth between us and Tomás and it was really funny. We actually laughed out loud and so did Tomás (he has been taught by us since june last year) and we proceeded to explain the blessings and it turned out to be a great lesson as always with them.

Thursday:

Today was LOADED. By 8 we were driving to the Centreville Stake Center to set up for the zone conference with the APs. It lasted 3.5 hours and it was absolutely incredible. We did a great job on our training hyping up our zone to find the Facebook miracles that are waiting for them and emphasizing the importance of the safeguards for technology. I realized that I was going to miss being the companion of Elder Streiff a lot because next week are transfers. Anyways, after the conference President thanked us for organizing and conducting it and gave us our zone's time for the interviews that would be tomorrow. Afterwards, we changed in the car into our service clothes and went straight to service at "Habitat for Humanity" until 5. By then we were sooooo hungry since we hadn't eaten since 7:30 that morning and so we stopped at Jersey Mikes on the way home and got some sandwiches. Tonight we did lots of things the most memorable of which was the lesson with Paola and Luis from Honduras and Ecuador and they are a hilarious couple (but unfortunately there was really bad signal the whole time...)

Friday:

Today we did service at the Prince William County Food Rescue Warehouse and it was soooo fun! They were out of cereal so we didn't build any boxes today but instead we helped with lots of other things mostly moving arround pallets, cleaning, organizing, preparing orders, helping load cars/trucksk, etc. I got to know Elder Garcia a little better and he seems really cool. He will actually be going to BYU in August, so we might see each other there! And speaking of BYU, I freaked out when I saw that Rozlyn ny younger sister got into BYU!!!!! I am so proud of her. 

For lunch we ate Chiptole and I got a fat burrito and it lasted me for lunch and dinner. Then we had about 20 minutes to plan our 7 lessons that night and we headed off to interviews. They went so well and I am so grateful for the leadership of such a loving, understanding man like President Duckworth. 

Saturday:

Today was the day we all recieved the TRANSFERS. They always get emailed to us around 9:30 pm and so it was hard to focus the whole day just because of the excitement (and nervousness) but despite all that it was still a very successful day. We had 10 lessons planned, but only 5 ended up going through each one of which was so good, especially the one with Liliana! We had Hermana Urbina with us in the lesson and she shared her conversion story (she used to be a member of the same church as Liliana) and it was so powerful. It was so positive and nice that afterwards Liliana sent us a text saying "Gracias por sus enseñanzas hermanos, fue muy bueno verlos y escucharlos hoy. Dios los bendiga 🙏💙"

Then, and 9:15 we get a call from the Sudley D Elderes and they were wanting to do the district prayer (something we do weekly where we all pray for the friends we are teaching as a district) and we said ok and added the whole district, and then during the middle of the prayer the transfers were sent and our phones all vibrated and we looked up at each other for a second and then back down just excited out of our minds. It seemed like an eternity later but after the prayer they zoomed to the pdf that was emailed to us, and I started recording to get their reactions on camera :) Elder Streiff's reaction was pure shock and it was really funny. In a nutshell this is what happened: Elder Krogh is going to where Elder Streiff came from with Elder Streiff's old companion (He actually predicted it it was insane) and Elder Streiff and I are staying here. We will also be recieving a 3rd companion Elder Douglas who I know for a fact is awesome because I sat next to him of the plane here to DC, I knew him in the MTC before I went to Costa Rica and he went to Argentina. I knew we were eventually going to be together, I just KNEW it!

Sunday: Un día muy tranquilo... We were super excited to go to church today because we had quite a few new friends who promised us they would go, but that morning the bishop cancelled all the meetings because of the ice that was in the parking lot... So we were mad. Well not mad, but disappointed I guess. but the day turned out great other than that. We are helping a recently baptized family's parents work towards going to the temple and they are sucha a fun family :) We also had a lesson where we taught baptism and it was very powerful. We had another lesson with Elizabeth and she accepted our invitation to come and see what participating in the sacrament is like because she had read about it in the bible, but none of the churches she had gone to have done it. We finished off with an amazing MLC call and it's always great to hear from President Duckworth. 

Today:

ITS TRANSFERS!!! We saw so many missionaries in all the picking up and dropping off that happened and it was the best thing ever to just talk to all of them and get to know them a little better. By the end of the day we came back with Elder Douglas and went shopping at Walmart and this old lady was determined to pay for our groceries, and we tried not to let her but she kept insisting and eventually won the battle :) We came home and unpacked and I called and talked to the family and Roz especially to congratulate her making it into BYU!! I hope we can take some classes together. 

Tiny spiritual thought: I read a verse in the New Testament this week that I loved! fyi we read the Reina Valera version in Spanish so it's a bit different but directly translated it says this: "You then, endure your afflictions as a faithful sodier of Jesus Christ" 2 Timoteo 2:3 To me that's so motivating to think of myself and my fellow members of the church as faithful soldiers of Jesus Christ it makes me just want to get up and MOVE! Speaking of which, my time is up and I gotta move! Have a great week everyone!

Elder Hilton

1) My missionary buddies!

2) Service!!! (the best one)

3)Rodrigo who was baptized yesterday by our district leader! I helped find him on Facebook about 2 months ago and I had the priveledge of conducting his baptismal interview!!!

week 85

Hello everyone! This week was another interesting one over here in DC! Here's a little bit of what happened:

Tuesday:

Today we had 2 member visits (through WhatsApp of course) and we tried to have Elder Krogh lead them to get him to use a bit more Spanish and it turned out well thank goodness. Later tonight we taught Tomas and Lesli - a couple that we were teaching 7 months ago when I was in this area the first time - and we talked about the Plan of Salvation and eternal marraige and it turned out very well! After the lesson, Tomas said he would be willing to chang his whole life around in order to live with his family forever. As a commitment, we invited them to read together "The Family A Proclamation to the World" that we would send them after the call. I'm excited to see what they learned from it!

Wednesday:

As the zone leaders, we were told we should attend the district councils of all the districts in our zone, so this week we went to the other district's council. Unfortunately, it turns out that that district leader was not holding down the fort that well, but we were able to help him with leading the meeting this time and it turned out ok. The best part was that we were able to build friendships and trust and motivate the people in our zone that we don't know as well. That's probably my favorite part of being a zone leader is meeting all the missionaries and having a big focus on motivating the zone!

Thursday:

We did service again at the the Habitat for Humanity with all the smoking workers and I left with a huge headache again :(

Today we did exchanges with one of the three APs, Elder Martin! He is a great guy and is amazing at icebreaker conversations and because of him we found a new friend that we have now had 2 lessons with!!! Because of the fact that we are already a trio, we figured that when AP Martin came, we should split into 2 different groups of two and because of that we could hypothetically do 12 lessons in three hours, however we only managed to schedule around 7 that night and only 4 happened. One was with Rolando and he had really good questions about sealing and asked us who President Nelson would be with after this life because he has been sealed to 2 people... We read a bit in Doctrine and Covenants to answer his question, and then gave his an assignment to listen to the  talk by Dallin H Oaks in Oct. 2019 called "Trust in God" and I think that will help him a lot. Rlando is a friend that we met a few months back and he has already FINISHED the Book of Mormon and knows it is true. However unfortunately his wife is not on the same page as him and has convinced him that he needs to read the bible now to be able to make an informed desicion on which church to be baptized in (she goes to a different one). He has already read the entire New Testament and he was telling us how now he just needs to finish the Old Testament but we managed to convince him that reading the Doctrine and Covenants would be of much more benefit because he would find answers to many of his questions while reading the Old Testament will likely cause more questions to arise whose answers are in the Doctrine and Covenants :) FYI if anyone needs to explain why the Old Testament can be confusing I refer you to 2 Corinthians 3:14. That "veil" was taken away in Christ for the belivers in Paul's day and today that "veil" is taken away by Christ through Joseph Smith in the Doctrine and Covenants. AWESOME! Anyways we suggested the 2021 Come follow me to Rolando because it is Doctrine and Covenants this year!!!

Friday:

Today we did my favorite service which is the Warehouse at the Prince William County Food rescue task force. It was so fun and we basically restacked pallets and drove around the powered pallet jacks, did an inventory of the entire warehouse and cleaned up a lot. At one point they needed us to take off these papers that were on eack pallet, except that all the pallets were so close to each other that is was impossible to walk between them, and it would take to long to take them all out, so what we did was "swim" over the top of the pallets evenly distributing our weight between the boxes to not squish them :) 

We also had our Book of Mormon institute class today and that was incredible as always. The Book of Mormon is awesome. Don't listen to anything anyone else says.

Saturday:

I forgot what happened because there was no time to write in my journal today... But I remember it being really productive with tons of contacts and we had a spontaneous lesson with Johnathan a guy our age who is well versed in the Bible! He's really cool. Also today I scheduled my first lesson with someone who I found on Facebook and started a conversation with! That lesson will be Monday night, so sadly you won't hear about that til next week.

Sunday:

Today was pretty crazy because we had Correlation at 8pm and then the Zoom MLC at 9 and then we had to drive Elder Streiff to the Fairfax Elder's apartment because he has to catch a flight that leaves at 6 am to SLC so that he can sign some papers for his Visa. He will be back Tuesday Morning. But the drive to the Fairfax Elders' apartment is 30 min away and so tonight we didn't go to bed until like 11:30

Today:

We deep cleaned the house in the morning and did the groceries and then we had a group activity at Signal Hill Park which was super fun! There were 4 sisters and 5 Elders in the activity and we played ultimate football, kicked a soccerball around, played basketball a bit and then they played Monopoly Deal on the one of the tennis courts while Elder Hyatt and I played tennis on the other one, except we were using pickleball paddles :) it was so fun, haha! Later we went to Walmart to get the rest of our groceries and I got a mini little canvas and some acrylic paint and I'm going to try to paint something really cool (basically a mix of the DC and Costa Rica Flag with my missionary nametag and its gonna be awesome) 

 Our service 

the biggest snowflakes I've ever seen in my life

Me next to Dan, the guy who trained us in the Warehouse (he's really cool)

Our pday group activity!

week 82

Hello everyone here are some things I want to talk about this week:

24th - Saturday 

Today was my mom's birthday! I love her so much because she is literally the awesome most spontaneousestestest fun-loving and thoughtful mom. Thanks for being you mom, I love you!!! 

26th

Today we had lots of lessons, but the one we had with Oscar was phenomenal! It was an English lesson with a spiritual thought at the end (although it really turned into a full detailed lesson on the Restoration) In the middle of it, Elder Streiff's phone battery got dangerously low and so we switched over to WhatsApp to finish up. I was mostly leading the lesson, and the Spirit was SO STRONG! There was lots of companionship unity and when Elder Krogh cited the first vision, Oscar's face was up next to the camera paying 110% attention and I knew the spirit was working through Elder Krogh's heavily accented words and through the bad connection and straight to his heart. We explained very thoroughly what the Book of Mormon is and he wanted a copy of his own. I felt that we had so much power in our teaching that I can't really put it into words. I just thank my Heavenly Father for the trust he has put in me to share his gospel and giving me the strength and guidance necessary to do it with power and convictioneven though sometime I feel like I am the least worthy of all the amazing missionaries out there. But this gospel is one of personal progression, not comparison, and I marvel every day at how much my desires have changed and how much joy I have felt in diligent, obedient missionary work. And today was one of those days where we saw some of the fruit of that diligent work. We had two more incredible lessons after the lesson with Oscar and both turned out very well. With Flor we only had time to share a short scripture (Juan 16:33) and share our thoughts on it, and after doing so, she was so grateful and expressed her gratitude saying it was exactly what she needed to hear. She is certain God sent us at this exact moment to remind her of what really mattered and then she recommitted herself to the study of the scriptures despite her busy schedule. That was another unforgettable exerience that made this day AWESOME! Also we ate tacos for dinner :))))))

27th - Wednesday

Today we did service again at this place called "Habitat for Humanity" and our job is basically to take all the stuff that people didn't buy and take it out back and destroy it until it fits well in the huge dumpster. It's fun but I leave with a bad headache every time because all the workers smoke and the place smells like a dump.

Later we had district counsel and that went well for the most part besides my headache and the fact that I fell asleep while the district leaders were roleplaying and Elder Daems got a picture of me. For dinner we ate some delicious homemade mac and cheese with chicken and Valentina sauce, but the recipe had lots of milk, cheese and butter so I only ate a little bit. (Stomach issues)

Tonight we had a couple lessons and the one with a certain woman with the last name of Martinez went kinda well, but as we explained what the Book of Mormon is, I immediately saw the doubt in her mind. I asked if she had questions and she said that the Bible says that it can't be added on to and I said well done, it says that in Revelations and you know what hermana, parts of the Book of Mormon were written BEFORE that verse was ever written! She sat up straight and nodded her head a bit, and said "ooook" then I took out Ezekiel 37 and showed how the Bible prophecies of the Book of Mormon and she was left without words. We finished of by explaining that the one who really testifies of truth is the Holy Ghost and she had to ask for herself to know if all this was true, and NOT rely on evidences. I said something like "Remember the Parable of Lazarus when Abraham explains to the rich man that if the profets and the scriptures don't convince his family to change their ways, then neither will miracles like raising someone from the dead. Hermana, if you don't kneel and ask you Father in Heaven with a sincere heart if this Book is his word, no amount of physical, actual evidence will convince you of its truth even though its right here in front of you." 

We left her with a powerful invitation to read the Book of Mormon and she said that she would!

  

28th - Thursday

Today was the first in-person Mission Leadership Council meeting (MLC) that I have ever been to. It was fantastic and I participated a lot.

The APs introduced a new 6 month mission-wide training plan that will be "personal/companionship study centered, district council supported" and will focus on elements of chapter 10 pf Preach my Gospel, and the missionaries themselves ae responsible for choosing the specific doctrinal points to teach each week in their roleplays. I was proud to watch my suggestion (getting missionaries to create their own plans so they are motivated to do it instead of being bogged down by homework-assignment-like tasks that fill up their studies) grow until we had developed it into something we were going to implement mission-wide. Then President trained us on divine intervention and coached us on encouraging obedience in our zones. Tonight we had a lesson with Rolando and he brought up some DEEP questions about marraige and sealing that we said we'd get back to him on..

29th - Friday

We did service for 4 hours this moring and it was really fun as always. After lunch I was feeling SUPER motivated for some reason and so I got my companions all excited for weekly planning and we went ahead and started it. It went pretty quickly and we made the Whiteboard look niiiice. 

30th - Saturday 

Today was a somewhat good day, a little awkward from what happened yesterday in weekly planning. I happened to see in of of Elder Streiff's emails during the Device audit that this was his quietest, least interesting companionship of his mission by far and that he's really struggling with the "greenie". So today I tried really hard to talk and laugh a lot and engage everyone a little more, but I think the fact I was trying made it even harder and less natural. I decided that just being normal and working harder and enjoying myself is the best approach. Today we got and email from one of the senior couples that we are going to get a snowstorm on Sunday and Monday and so we would need to get our groceries today. We took some time out of our busy day to do it, and so that's why today my email is so long! Woohoo!!!

Also today we had 6 lessons and the best one was with Liliana Paredes. She was already ready with her Book of Mormon and Bible and then ran off to get her earbuds so she could hear us better. We taught her the Restoration with a bit of focus on the Apostasy part and the difference between Restoration and Reformation. It seemed like she understood it well this time and when we read the last two paragraphs of the introduction of the Book of Mormon, she stopped us where it said "by the power of the Holy Ghost". She was so intrigued and she asked us how excatly the Spirit had manifested the truth of the book to us, individually. We each shared our testimonies and it was very spiritual. She had so many other incredible questions, like how can she study the Bibe and the Book of Mormon together, and we explained to her the footnote system and all the cross-references to the Bible.

31st - Sunday

Snow! This morning we woke up to snow just as predicted!!! It looks pretty but it also means that we didn't get to go to church in person. But it was the best most packable snow perfect for snowballs and snowmen.

I'm going to skip all the way to tonight to the second of ten lessons because it was with our friend last-named Martinez again. It was really frustrating because she said in the beginning that she "forgot" to even look for her Book of Mormon, and then eventually said over and over that she won't believe anything other that the Bible. 

We had a member with us and they got along well and that's why she opened up a bit and said IIf I'm honest I'm not going to read the Book of Mormon. And if I'm really honest, I don't even read the Bible. It's just that the thing is the Bible is the only thing that is true for me. For ME, yup the ONLY thing. Nothing else." Elder Streiff and I were both very frustrated because she all her excuses made no sense and she has so much potential!!! Talk about Book of Mormon prophecies being fulfilled right in front of your face! --> 2 Nephi 29:3

All in all, this week was chock full of so many things and if I had more time I would tell you more about it! The most important thing is that this week my testimony of the Book of Mormon and the Restoration has grown so much. I'm so grateful that it happened and even though many people won't accept it, the Lord says "I will show unto them that fight against my word and against my people, who are of the house of Israel, that I am God, and that I have covenanted with Abraham that I would remember his seed forever." 

 And I have the privilege to to bring people into the house of Israel through the ordinance of baptism. How awesome is that??

I love you all and have a great week and if you happen to see that you have some spare time and you would really like to make an Elder happy, go ahead and send me an email because I love to see what's going on in your lives. Thank you!!!!