Hola todos!
What another wonderful week it's been here in Carrizo springs! We have been busy all week and it's been great! I truly love Texas and everyone here! It's starting to get real hot down here! Thank goodness for air conditioning! I've never sweat so much in my life. The humidity just makes you feel like your sopping wet all the time.
I'm going to start out my email today by telling you the miracle of having 10 investigators at church yesterday! We had invited a lot of people to church this week and Anna and Pearl came! When they arrived all the sudden Pearl had 7 kids with her. We thought she only had 2 little girls, Precious and Paris, but turns out she has 7 kids! They were all so excited to come to church and they were all dressed nicely and ready to learn. Earlier on in the week we had set up a church tour to do with them and they absolutely loved it and were so excited to come to church on Sunday! I gave a talk during Sacrament meeting and then Hermana Landon and I sang a duet in Spanish. They loved it and felt the spirit so strong that they both cried. Pearl took a lot of notes during church and said her favorite part was Relief Society! All of her kids enjoyed primary too. They drew pictures and then after they told Pearl what they had learned and were so excited! It was great to see them all happy and have such a wonderful experience! We have another lesson set up with them tomorrow so hopefully things will go well. They love learning and reading in the Book of Mormon and the pamphlets that we give them!
We had some sad news happen this week. Jessie Gomez decided he wasn't ready right now to make any changes or commitments in his life, but that maybe in the future he would be. That made us so sad, but to know that he has the Book of Mormon and he knows how to contact the missionaries is a good thing, so hopefully one day he will meet with the missionaries again.
Betty Garcia is having a rough time making time to meet with us and has been working on Sundays so it's hard for her to make it to church. But last night we were able to meet with her again and we had a good lesson with her and were able to teach based on her needs. She told us she really wants to make time to meet with us every day this week so she can continue learning and feel the spirit in her life again. She has such a strong testimony of the gospel and its amazing how fast she is learning and knows that God is aware of her and everything she is going through.
We had a wonderful lesson with Stacie and Carlos this week. Brother Alvarez was able to come with us and he bore a powerful testimony on how repentance has changed his life. Carlos is a less active member and Brother Alvarez is his older brother. Stacie is a non-member and is Carlos's girlfriend. We taught them about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and Stacie shared with us how much she wants change in her life and just wants to be happy! They weren't able to make it to church this week because they went out of town, but hopefully this next week they will be able to come (crossing fingers).
A miracle happened this week! Our investigator Kris Poff decided she wants to be baptized! She sent us a text message after we met with her that she wants to get baptized in June in Bluff Utah where all her family and friends are living. We are super excited for her and hope that everything will go well with that! She is the biggest cowgirl I've ever met and she's teaching us how to rope today for p-day (yay)!
This weekend we had the wonderful opportunity to go to San Antonio for Zone Conference. Elder Craig C. Christensen from the 70 came and spoke with us. It was by far the best Zone Conference I've had my whole mission. He spoke to us about a few things and then we did a Q&A for about 2 hours. It was the greatest thing ever! I've never had so many questions answered all at one time. I'm grateful that he was able to come here and speak with us. I know that our Prophet and the 12 Apostles and the 70 are men called from God.
To finish up my email today I wanted to share a thought that I had this week starting with a story from the October 2016 General Conference: By Elder LeGrand R. Curtis Jr. Of the Seventy.
"On June 14, 1989, due to some misinformation about the Church, the government of Ghana banned all activities of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints within that African country. The government seized all Church property, and all missionary activity stopped. The members of the Church, who refer to this period as “the freeze,” did their best to live the gospel without branch meetings or the support of missionaries. There are many inspiring stories about how the members kept the light of the gospel shining by worshipping in their homes and looking after each other as home and visiting teachers.
Eventually the misunderstanding was resolved, and on November 30, 1990, the freeze ended and normal Church activities resumed. Since then there has been an excellent relationship between the Church and the government of Ghana. Members who lived through the freeze are quick to point out the blessings that came from that unusual period. The faith of many was strengthened through the adversity that they faced. But one blessing of the freeze came in an unusual way. Nicholas Ofosu-Hene was a young policeman assigned to guard an LDS meetinghouse during the freeze. His duty was to watch over the building at night. When Nicholas first arrived at the meetinghouse, he saw that things had been scattered around, with papers, books, and furniture in disarray. In the midst of this disorder, he saw a copy of the Book of Mormon. He tried ignoring the book because he had been told that it was evil. But he felt strangely attracted to it. Finally, Nicholas could ignore the book no longer. He picked it up. He felt impelled to start reading it. He read through the night, tears running down his cheeks as he read.
The first time he picked it up, he read all of 1 Nephi. The second time, he read all of 2 Nephi. When he got to 2 Nephi chapter 25, he read the following: “And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins.”
At that point, Nicholas felt the Spirit so strongly that he started sobbing. He realized that in the course of his reading he had received several spiritual promptings that this book was scripture, the most correct he had ever read. He realized that the Latter-day Saints, contrary to what he had heard, strongly believe in Jesus Christ. After the freeze ended and missionaries returned to Ghana, Nicholas, his wife, and his children joined the Church. When I saw him last year, he was a police commander and was serving as the president of the Tamale Ghana District of the Church. He says: “The Church has transformed my life. … I thank the Almighty God for leading me into this gospel.”"
I know that our loving Heavenly Father has a plan and he wants us to be happy. Knowing that doubt, disbelief, and misinformation would remain after centuries of darkness known as the great Apostasy our Heavenly Father brought forth an ancient volume of holy scripture comparable to the Bible, which contains the fullness of the gospel, the plan of salvation, and it testifies of Jesus Christ. Reading, pondering, and praying about the Book of Mormon are critical for someone to receive a lasting conversion.
Elder LeGrand R. Curtis Jr. goes on to say, "Some people have such a powerful experience with the Book of Mormon the first time they open it, but for others the witness of the truthfulness comes more gradually as they read and pray about it."
He told of an experience that one of his friends once had. He says, "I have a friend who read the Book of Mormon searching to know if it was true. He applied the invitation in Moroni to ask God with a sincere heart, with real intent and faith in Christ, if the Book of Mormon is true. But he did not immediately get the promised spiritual answer. However, one day as he was deep in thought, driving down the road, the Spirit testified to him of the truth of the Book of Mormon. So happy and overwhelmed was he that he rolled down the car window and yelled, to no one in particular and yet to all the world, “It’s true!”"
When I first read the Book of Mormon as a young child with my family it didn't make a whole lot of sense to me with the big words and the usage of thee, thou, thine but as I grew up to be a teenager I kept reading it on my own, praying, writing down spiritual promptings that I would receive so that I could understand it better and as I came to be an adult I still didn't fully understand it but every time I read it I could sense something. There was always a sense of spirit and peace that came every time I opened the book. The feeling grew as I continued my reading and knowledge came with it along with my testimony of it's truthfulness.
Whether our testimony of the Book of Mormon comes the first time we open it or over a period of time, it will influence us all of our days if we continue to read it and apply it's teachings. President Ezra Taft Benson taught: “There is a power in the book which will begin to flow into your lives the moment you begin a serious study of the book. You will find greater power to resist temptation. You will find the power to avoid deception. You will find the power to stay on the strait and narrow path.”
The greatest power of the Book of Mormon is it's impact in bringing us closer to Jesus Christ. I have been asked many times on my mission "But why is the Book of Mormon so essential if we already have the Bible to teach us about Jesus Christ?"
Elder Tad R. Callister said this, "Have you ever wondered why there are so many Christian churches in the world today when they obtain their doctrines from essentially the same Bible? It is because the interpret the Bibl differently. If they interprete it the same, they would be the same church. This is not a condition the Lord desires, for the Apostle Paul declared that there is “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Ephesians 4:5). To help bring this oneness about, the Lord established a divine law of witnesses. Paul taught, “In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established” (2 Corinthians 13:1). The Bible is one witness of Jesus Christ; the Book of Mormon is another. Why is this second witness so crucial? The following illustration may help: How many straight lines can you draw through a single point on a piece of paper? The answer is infinite. For a moment, suppose that single point represents the Bible and that hundreds of those straight lines drawn through that point represent different interpretations of the Bible and that each of those interpretations represents a different church. What happens, however, if on that piece of paper there is a second point representing the Book of Mormon? How many straight lines could you draw between these two reference points: the Bible and the Book of Mormon? Only one. Only one interpretation of Christ’s doctrines survives the testimony of these two witnesses. Again and again the Book of Mormon acts as a confirming, clarifying, unifying witness of the doctrines taught in the Bible so that there is only “one Lord, one faith, one baptism."
I am grateful for the invitation and promise that the Lord has offered through the prophet Moroni to each of us and to everyone who reads the Book of Mormon. I would invite all of you to go read the 2nd to last paragraph in the Introduction to the Book of Mormon even if you have already read it before. Pray and learn something new from it.
I know that whether it be the first time you open up the Book of Mormon or the 75th time you open it up that you WILL receive that promised blessing as you seek and pray with a sincere heart that the Lord will bare witness of its truthfulness unto you. I know that God lives and loves us. He wants to bless each of us. He has a plan and He wants us to be happy. I love each and every one of you. I pray for you and your families and I know that as you have faith in the Lord and continue to press forward that you will find true happiness in your life. I know the Book of Mormon is true and that it contains all truth in it.
I hope y'all have a wonderful week! I love you, stay safe.
Con amor,
Hermana Mann
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