Sunday, August 25, 2013

August


Hola!
This week was pretty awesome, we had one of the best lessons yet with one of our investigators yesterday. She rents a room out from a member, so we were at her house eating with them yesterday and got to teach her the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was such a powerful lesson, the Spirit was the strongest it's ever been when we teach her. I was so grateful for that, it makes a big difference. She is so awesome, still has some hang ups but she's getting there. She comes to church almost every week, and has for the past 3 months. She's just struggling to realize that she's ready. But she is. It was really cool because during dinner, we started talking about her reading (we left her with Alma 32) and then somehow the Word of Wisdom came up (we still haven't taught her that, but knew she'd have problems with smoking and coffee). We got to talk to her about why we follow it and how it really comes down to faith. It was the perfect lead in to the Gospel. She's going to be baptized on September 22nd and I am so excited for it!

Our FHE with the Becerras went pretty well too, their whole family came! Alex, Jovita, their son, Alex, and his parents- Leon and Amelia (Amelia kind of reminds me of gma LaPierre). So it was a pretty big crowd. We had planned a pretty simple lesson- watch the Restoration video, introduce Book of Mormon, invite her (Jovita) to a baptismal date, and to read and pray, and go to church. It went really well. It's so interesting though, because they all have different needs and different doubts- so it's hard to know how to help them all at the same time...in the same lesson. It was awesome to have president there to help them with their doubts and questions. He was awesome. Hermana Southworth and I were talking about it and I think at some point in the lesson every PMG lesson was touched on, so it was a lot. But it was good. We were able to address alot of their questions, hopefully.
It was kind of sad though, their family has alot of issues, one of which is that they struggle letting go of who Alex was in the past. He's as changed man, but they tend to still hold on to who he was and not let it go. That really made me think. You can see in his face that he's a repentant man, he's different.You could see the emotion and regret in his eyes. He still has some things that he's got to work out before he can get baptized, but he's different. It made me sad to see his family not letting go of who he was. It made me realize how absolutely important it is to forgive others. When we hold on to grudges or things that happened in the past, we refuse to accept that the Lord can change people's hearts, that His Gospel is really true and really works. I am so grateful for the reality of His Gospel, that makes bad men good and good men better every day. It is the best thing that has happened to me and the best thing that can happen to anyone. I know it changes people because it changes me everyday. It helps me let go of wrongs done to me and forgive those around me, it also gives me the hope that I can become better than I am right now. That is the healing power of the Atonement, the reason Christ came to this earth. What a blessing to take part of that every day.
Love you all,
Hermana LaPierre

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