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| My new companion, Elder Torres! |
May 9, 2016
Hello everyone!
Happy Mother’s Day to all of the mothers out there…without
mothers, I don't know where this world would be! And of course, I want to give
a special shout-out to the best mother in the game, my own mother! I am so
grateful for her, and I don't think that I could be here on a mission without
her. Like the stripling warriors said in Alma 56:47
"Now they never had fought, yet they did not fear death;
and they did think more upon the liberty of their fathers than they did upon
their lives; yea, they had been taught by their mothers, that if they did
not doubt, God would deliver them. And they rehearsed unto me the words of
their mothers, saying: We do not doubt our mothers knew it."
I can echo the words of these stripling warriors, and my own
mother has taught me to not doubt, and I also know without a doubt that my mom
knows it. I love you Mom! I am grateful for you and for all the love that you
send my way, and I am also grateful for your testimony.
As far as the work in Nevada goes...it goes great! My new
companion's name is Elder Torres. He is from Florida – but his parents are from
Peru, so we have some natural Spanish blood in our companionship now...and he
is a STUD. He is awesome. He has lots of fire and excitement for the work, and
he doesn't even need to be trained, he is training me! We are having lots of
fun. An English member called us the “Dynamite” companionship because we are
Elders T & T....haha!
Our investigators are moving along slowly but surely. Francisco
is doing well, and made it to church yesterday! He truly is dedicated to come
to church...he got up at 3am Sunday morning and went to work, came home around
10am, came to church, and then went back to work after church. That is what you
call true desire! He almost didn't have a ride to church, though. All weekend long we were looking for someone
to take him to church, but nobody was able to! Finally at 9:30pm on Saturday
night, Alberto – a recent convert, agreed to drive Francisco and it was a huge
miracle!! Then on Sunday morning, we went to Alberto's house, and we were going
to ride with him to pick up Francisco and then the 4 of us zip to church
together...but we jumped in Alberto's car and it didn't start!! So we quickly
had to scramble around to get some jumper cables, and we jumped his car and
then we were off! I was praying the whole way that we wouldn't have any more
trouble, and sure enough, we made it all together with Francisco AND the car.
So that was a huge tender mercy.
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| Alberto - the recent convert who drove Francisco to church for us. |
The Aguilar Family, that we found last week is doing ok. We haven't had the chance to sit down with
them and teach the Restoration, but we are hopefully going to do that tonight, because
we have a lesson set up. We did have dinner with them on Tuesday night and that
was a lot of fun. I enjoy having meals with investigators, because it gives us
the chance to get to know them a little bit and they can get to know us. And
not to mention I have grown to LOVE authentic Mexican food with beans, rice,
meat, and homemade tortillas! (It's better than Taco Bell!)
Mileishka (the Luciano's 17-year old daughter) is going to be
baptized this Saturday! We are super excited, and it has also been cool to see
her family get excited for her, too. It should be a great service, and the whole
branch has rallied to support her. Please keep her and her family in your
prayers this week as we go down the home stretch for her baptism!
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| Elder Han, Alberto, and me |
With this transfer, I have definitely felt the weight of an area
upon my shoulders. Elder Han and I found tons of solid investigators and had
tons of miracles, and I don't want any of them to slip through the cracks as a
result of this transfer. I have felt that extra burden now that Elder Han is
gone and can't help me plan and teach these solid investigators. Thankfully, I
am not alone in this effort...in fact we are never alone. Heavenly Father and
Jesus Christ know exactly how we feel, and they want us to struggle and have
hard times, so that we can grow closer to them. If life was always a walk in
the park with no trials at all, then we would never really grow closer to them.
Many people might ask, "If you are doing the Lord's work, why doesn't he
just make it easy for you? I mean if you have faith, and he wants you to have
success, why don't you baptize 20 people a week?" And the answer is the
same, because he wants us to work hard and to push ourselves.
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| Saying goodbye to Elder Han...he's off to Elko! |
I am grateful for the knowledge that I have that my Savior is
there for me any time. One of my all-time favorite scriptures is Matt.
11:28-30: "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I
will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and
lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy,
and my burden is light." There is power in this scripture, and I know
that as we take those trials, hardships, pains, and sorrows to our Lord, we can
find rest and be relieved. I am grateful for those hard times, because they
allow us to grow.
The Church is true, folks!
I love you all, have a great week!
Love,
Elder
Todd
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| It started hailing during our weekly planning session |
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