Hola familia!
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| My Turkey Cookie. Our District made these on P-day last week. Thanks Mom! |
Yeah, Christmas time always is super busy with all of the concerts and ward stuff and all the crazy things. Just don't forgot to make time to go see the lights in Coeur d'Alene sometime! Is it a little better without the store though? I bet uncle Ben is pretty busy. We've been keeping pretty busy like always.
So the word has come in from the mission leader conference. For Christmas music we can listen to anything that's not "Hip-Hop" or more intense. Which means all of the classic Christmas songs, not just hymns. Which means Michael Buble's Christmas CD is approved. :D The only other CD I'm missing right now that I can think of is that Josh Groban one. I'm excited for the pre-Christmas package for sure!
Yeah, BYU Provo took forever to respond. I'm sure Cassidy will get in though. Canute (Dylan's RA from last year at BYU) is in some kind of computer science major too. He sent all the missionaries a whole bunch of pictures of Whitney Hall being torn down, little by little. It was super sad.
This week was super duper awesome. We had TWO people get baptized on Sunday!!! It's a Christmas miracle! First we have Santiago. He married a member months ago and has been living with her parents, coming to Church every week and even paying his tithing. Last week he finally gave in, gave us the word, and now he's baptized!
And then there's Nick. He's nine. The Morenos have been less active for a long time, apart from their oldest son and daughter who come to Church every once in a while. We finally caught the parents at home a few weeks ago and they were all like, "yeah there were some missionaries coming over a long time ago but then we lost contact with them." So now they've been making time, putting sports aside and everything to come to Church. And Kevin even baptized Nick, which was awesome.
Also this week, Elder Tad R Callister is coming to the mission and giving a bunch of conferences for the missionaries and all the members. We have ours on Friday. It'll be super spiritual and I'm sure we're all going to learn so much and get all kinds of inspiration.
Definitely bearing testimony is super important in missionary work. I read a talk last week from like 50 years ago, but it said that the most important roles of missionaries is to testify and challenge. We bear testimony of the truth of the gospel so the Spirit can carry our words to their hearts, and then we challenge people to make changes in their lives to see the blessings and feel the Spirit more strongly themselves. Missionaries love to make commitments. Commitments are an act of faith, and when people keep them they help change their lives, which is repentance. As people repent and feel the spirit they prepare to make covenants and come unto Christ. The only reason we teach lessons is because sometimes people are stubborn and don't want to recognize the spirit or admit they need to change. Our personal testimony really is the most powerful thing we have, to strengthen us in our own lives as well as bringing others to the fold of Christ.
Well I love you all so much!!! I'll talk to you all pretty soon. I heard we get to Skype on Christmas Eve or Christmas for 45 minutes. Man the time flies!!!
Love,
Elder Dylan Young
