Hola!
Here I am again, stunned that another week has gone by here in the CCM. We are now HALFWAY through our time here! This time next month I will be on my way to Argentina! I have some exciting things to share this week so I'd better start!
- On Tuesday, we had our weekly devotional. AND GUESS WHO IT WAS? ELDER HOLLAND!!! Just my favorite apostle in the world! Oh my gosh. IT WAS AMAZING! He walked into the room while we were singing prelude and we all stood for him. A wonderful spirit FILLED the room! It was such a special witness to me that THIS MAN is an apostle of the Lord! I sang in the choir again this week (are you all shocked?!) so we had great seats. We sang 'come thou fount' which is definitely one of my favorites, as well as Elder Holland's! He started off by telling us that we are one of the miracles of this church and probably the most prayed for, save the Prophet. He expressed deep love and admiration for us and told us that he prayed for us as well. Morning and night. Then, the real fun started. I don't think I've ever felt so chastised but so loved in my whole life. He practically yelled at us, but with tears in his eyes. It was so great. He told us that The apostles and the prophet expect a lot of us. They expect us to 'pull our socks [or tights] up to our armpits and get to work'. He told us that we do NOT have the right to compromise our mission. There is 200 years of restoration tradition on our shoulders and we do not have the right to compromise what we are seen as. Missionaries are the image of the church. We are known by it. He also told us we need to come back CHANGED for good, even if we were terrific before. We are never supposed to go back to what we were before. He told us that we shouldn't fade after our missions, if we are just going because our parents want to and just want to get it over with, THEN WHY ARE WE GOING?! We need to come back from our missions with the gospel burned into our souls and into our countenances. Young people should say 'I want to be like them' when you speak. We won't be perfect, but we better try! He told us we would be apostolic... a witness sent to declare His word. We learned that we need to use the BoM more. It is so important! If investigators read the first 10 chapters, they will be well on their way to a testimony of the restoration. Elder Holland also said that the BoM contains the spirit! It physically dwells there. We also learned we need to PERSONIFY the spirit into our personalities. Persuade and never force, be individual, be simple, this leads to ACTION. That is something I've never thought about before. It was such an amazing talk, I wish you ALL could have heard it. I left feeling edified and feeling the need to improve... A lot. I feel so blessed to have been able to listen to an apostle of the Lord.
- Now for the subject of this email... It's too bad Elder Holland couldn't have come next week because... I'll be giving the closing prayer at devotional. Yup, Elder Kelly and I were chosen from our zone to give the prayers at the next devotional. Did I mention that they are broadcasted to 15 MTC's?!! What?! How did I get chosen for this job? Do I know how to pray in English anymore? I hope that I don't slip Spanish in there. AYE! AYE AYE! Hopefully it goes well because, my lands, I am terrified.
- Real quick: We sing the hymn Armies of Helaman sometimes... but instead of singing, 'and we will be the Lord's missionaries' we sing ' and we ARE NOW the Lord's missionaries'. I LOVE THAT! I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!
- Investigators: Ruben. Our sweet golden investigator. We have a fecha for him to be baptized on March 24. He is well on his way! We brought a ward member, Eduardo (actually Hermano Romney) to help fellowship him and teach him about getting baptized and getting the priesthood. Ruben is SO excited to get the priesthood because then he can baptize his mother! So sweet. Now there's Sergio. He is such a hard man and has so many questions. It's hard to find out what he needs, but we definitely have made progress. We did have a terrible lesson where he asked about infant baptism and I led him to Moroni 8. I forgot how strong that chapter is! He was like 'Es muy fuerte, no?' ahhh then he had 100 more questions that we didn't know. Hno. Larsen told us after that he just saw the wind blow out of our sails, and we looked like we wanted to crawl under a rock. Which was TRUE! Aye. But he did say never to feel bad for teaching the truth. We had another lesson with him yesterday, and it was SO GREAT! We tried to pay attention to the spirit more and decided to talk about faith. We read Ether 12 and he loved it. (no witness till after trial of your faith). It went so well and HE FINALLY ACCEPTED A FECHA FOR BAPTISM! Same day as Ruben. He did say if he wasn't ready he wouldn't do it. BUT HE WILL BE READY. That's a promise. I wish I could tell you more about them!
- Happy Birthday to my awesome cousin Greg Dunn! I hope you had a great day. And Happy birthday to my amigas mejores TAYLOR AND PAIGE! I love you guys and I wish I could be there to draw awkward portraits of you and sing weird songs. Hope each of your birthdays are GREAT. Thank you Serna family in Virginia for the dearelder! I love reading those! Love you! Thank you for all the prayers and support. I feel it every day! I have never been so tired in my life. But I am SO DANG HAPPY! I don't get it! I love you all so much and hope you have the best week!
Besos y Abrazos,
Hermana Squire
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