30 May 2011

We had mission conference this past week and it was amazing. For some reason, everything was just soooo clear this conference for me. I mean that as far as how I can teach more simply and help investigators more effectively. It was last Friday and we started by listening to the testimonies of the new missionaries, words from President, and then we watched a talk from Elder Jeffrey R. Holland that he gave in the MTC. The area presidency of Chile wanted all of the missionaries to see that talk. He spoke on us teaching for the needs of investigators, getting the most out of our two years, and other things that we have heard a lot. But, the way he said it was inspired and I was impacted by it. The rest of the conference we spoke on how we can plan better, teach better, study better, and things like that. The next morning, I studied over my notes and I read in ¨Preach My Gospel.¨ Still full of the Spirit from the conference, I read over the first chapter in Preach My Gospel that talks about our purpose as missionaries. One sentece was so clear to me that totally changed how I teach and contact people. It said that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is to clean us spiritually. Those arent the words but it was just as clear as that. Sometimes we make things complicated but in the end, that is the whole reason for the Gospel!

We found a lot of good people this past week. We are going to try to get tons of members to come out with us this next week so that the investigators will feel more comfortable going to church next Sunday. We also started a ¨40 days of fasting.¨ We are going to fast as a ward for the mission work. We have a sheet and we put it on a board and the families of the ward fill in their name for which day they are going to fast. We just finished the first day but we are already seeing blessings!

At church, we had a couple investigators. Soledad, the mom of Felipe, didnt go though. Felipe was assigned a talk and we practiced it with him a lot the day before but on Sunday morning he got scared and ran upstairs and didnt want to go to church to give his talk! Oh well, he is only 12 and has been a member for 2 weeks so that would be pretty crazy. We saw Felipe Sunday afternoon and we had him give his talk in front of us two and his mom and he did an amazing job! But, Constanza gave a talk and she was crying the whole time from nerves but she did an amazing job. She paused at one point and said, ¨Sorry I am crying and like this but I am feeling the Spirit and it feels so cool!¨ Everyone laughed and loved her talk.

Thats about it! Love yall!

Elder Gregory