6-29-15

"O God, Aaaron hath told me that there is a God, and if there is a God, and if thou art God, wilt thou make thyself known unto me, and I will give away all my sins to know thee, and that I may be raised from the dead, and be saved at the last day. And now when the king had said these words, he was struck as if he were dead." - alma 22:18. kind of the theme of my week. Prayers have power, and I have tried to really just improve my personal prayers, and my connection with our Heavenly Father. Even the simplest of prayers, like this one, can change so much. Even it converted this king and the whole lamanite nation in the end. 

This week was a good one to us. We worked hard, didn't see to much results number wise but I felt so much of the spirit, and that's what truly counts. I was so grateful to have this abundance of the spirit, and we can owe it to our prayers, the temple, and just doing to simple things like living the commandments. 

I felt the spirit in one home. The door to this family and home is usually closed to us, but the spirit had worked on the mother of the home, and she let us in. We were casually trying to see if a convert was in this giant apartment building he lives in, and he wasn't. but they're neighbors were, the whole family. The sister, Harumy, looked at us for a second and told us to come in. We sat down with the entire family and taught a short lesson about prayer and our purpose as missionaries. Usually these people have never had interest in us before, and it was a shock to be able to enter into their home so freely. Since then we have visited the one more time, and we continued to feel the spirit guiding us as we testified of the Restoration. These are precious moments!

We said goodbye to my first mission president and his wife, Pres. and Hna. Marler. They have helped so much this last year, and I feel so close to them. They will be presiding over the Trujillo North Mission, and I will be in the Trujillo South Mission under the guidance of Pres. Rios. He will be great to have though, and I'm excited to have a new president and recieve so many more experiences. I'll be having to speak a lot more spanish!

I remember when I used to go on splits with the Elder's back home. The spirit with them was so strong, and everytime I went home after only have been one hour with them really touched me. Sometimes I feel like as a missionary this is just kind of my job. But these past few weeks, I have really felt more of the love for the work, and the desires to just keep progressing and moving the work forward. This is a huge answer to prayers for me! To have such great role models, like those elders, my friends on their missions, my parents, and of course our Savior, is helping me and I feel all of their examples as I apply what I've learned from them. I know we can all feel this, and feel the love for others and feel the love for God as we strive to do the little things everyday.

Thanks for everything, the best of weeks this week!

Love, Elder Caldwell