Loor al Profeta

This week has been pretty great overall. We did exchanges with the zone leaders and I realized how much I enjoy the company of my ¨son¨ Elder Starkey. We are planning a baptism for this Friday. And I came to really appreciate the love that God has showed us by calling a prophet in these latter days. 

This Friday another grandmother named Yolanda will be baptized, just like in Tucuman. It seems as though all grandmothers named Yolanda seem to take a fancy to me. Haha but she is really great. She can´t read and hardly understands what we are explaning at times but she is so willing to do what the Lord expects of her and wants to do this to set an example for the rest of her family. Unfortunately, we won´t have a sacrament meeting this weekend because of General Conference so Yolanda will be confirmed next week. I´ll send pics and the deets next week!

That reminds me, I´m way pumped for General Conference! Since the branch is really small here, we are going to have to take a bus to Orán that´s about 45 minutes away to watch it on the big screen. It´s great time to hear the Lord speaking to us through His prophets and apostles.

The title of this letter,Loor al Profeta, means Praise to the prophet or more commonly known as the Hymn ¨Praise to the man¨. Multiple times this week, we shared short messages with our investigators and afterwards watched a film from the Church called ¨Joseph Smith: The Prophet of the Restoration¨. It´s a great movie and I would recommend it to everyone, member or not. It explains about the humble life of Joseph Smith and his search for the truth. In our day, there are thousands of churches and every one of them teaches differently.  Everyone seems to have the same question in all the world... Which is correct? And how can I know it? Joseph had that very question but in his time, just like ours, every church claimed to be the right one. He learned from the Bible that to know the truth, he should ask God and would be guided correctly if he did so. He asked and received an answer. He was told by God the Father and Jesus Christ the he should join none of them and that the true Church that Christ organized was lost after His death along with the permission needed to teach and baptize in the name of God. But God once again, to show His great love for His children, called a prophet and restored the Church of Jesus Christ. In the movie, Joseph invites one of the pastors from another church to learn more and attend the Church of Jesus Christ. The pastor asked if he was still determined to create this church of his. Joseph Smith responded by saying the following powerful statement,¨It´s not mine... It is His. It is the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ.¨ I know that this is the Church that Christ leads and directs. I know that God has called a prophet in these days to fulfill the writings of Amos,¨ For surely, the Lord God will do nothing save He reveal His secrets to his servants the prophets.¨ I know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the only church with the proper authority for the salvation of all humanity. And if any of you wish to know for yourselves, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not. 

Esta es la senda, y no hay otra... Lo sé, lo vivo, me encanta.

Elder Philpot

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Hablando, Se Entienden

Well, this week has been quite the adventure, let me tell you. We were able to see a few miracles and I got to learn a few lessons that really impacted me. First of all, the sister of Santos Diaz who was just baptized is starting to listen very seriously and accepted to be baptized on the 24th of April. She´s really awesome, just like her brother! She reads the Book of Mormon every day and even read when we forgot to leave a chapter for her. Yesterday, she arrived at church with her brother Santos earlier than all the members, except for the Branch President and his wife (I think). Haha Miguel Davalos, a member with a minor mental disorder, taught with us all week and helped us find new people to teach. The other day, he said something that made me really surprised. ¨Hablando, se entienden... No hablando, no se entienden.¨ Talking, they understand eachother... not talking, they don´t understand eachother. He told me that he learned it from his mom who passed away some time ago. After all these years, Miguel was able to understand something that a lot of us can have trouble with. Some of the most important attributes that we can achieve are: patience, humility, and charity. Almost always, we begin losing these attributes when we lose understanding about someone else. When I don´t understand why my companion does something, I´ll lose patience. When I lose my patience, I begin to grow prideful, thinking that my way is the best way and if others don´t conform, then they´re wrong. Then, I lose the love that I once had for lack of humility. It can be applied to any circumstance. (By the way, my companion and I get along great so don´t worry, it´s just an example). I would like to invite all of you faithful blog readers to let go of your pride and regain the love for someone that was difficult to understand. Find a way to speak with those who don´t understand you. Be Christ-like. When we speak with kind words, we will be understood, and ultimately found guiltless before God in the last day.

To end, I want to share a short story. One of the member families here in Pichanal is recently coming back to church after a few months without going. The mother of the family had gone to another church for a long time and I never knew exactly why because she seems to know that the Church is true. The other day, she told me that she was going to go back to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She said that she had prayed to know that the Book of Mormon was true and received an answer. Every time that she read with the missionaries, she felt the Spirit and a guilt for not following the answer about the Book of Mormon. She went to church yesterday and I saw her very happy with a big ol smile. I realized the power that the Book of Mormon has in the process of receiving revelation. If we want to feel our Father´s love and the direction that He can give us, we must read His words. Read the Book of Mormon! It´s true! I know it, I live it, I love it!

Elder Philpot

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Deseos, Prioridades, Decisiones, Acciones

Well, this week was actually really normal and, for now, I can´t think of any really awesome stories. A real bummer, I know. But this week we were supposed to give our talks in Sacrament meeting about missionary work but turns out they cancelled us and talked about seminary and institute instead. Next week we´re going to give our talks but I really want to talk about the topic because it´s gonna be the best talk in the whole world. Haha I started off by searching in some of the General Conference talks that we have and I found one by Dallin H. Oaks from April 2011. In the talk he explained,¨ Desires dictate our priorities, priorities shape our choices, and choices determine our actions.¨ I don´t know why but the quote really hit me. As I thought more about how to shape my talk to help the members understand the importance of our desires, I thought of multiple examples. We can look at some poor examples from the Bible: Cain, King David, Judas Iscariot, and a few from the Book of Mormon, Laman and Lemuel. Their desires consist of: Sin, Women (in David´d case), Money, Praise of men, Luxury, easy living, lack of rules, satisfy Satan even. As a result their first priority was to satisfy the natural man, and their second priority was to satisfy God. Later, we can see that temptation had an easy influence in their decisions: Cain chose to hate Abel and even God, David chose to lust after a woman unrighteously, Judas Iscatiot chose to deny the Christ, and Laman and Lemuel chose to rebel against righteousness. Later, Cain killed Abel, David sinned against God and lost his glory, Judas turned in Jesus to his death, and Laman and Lemuel became a sinful nation that killed God´s servants. Now, there are quite a few good examples but for sake of time, I am only going to include one.

The sole desire of Jesus Christ was fulfill the will of the Father. In fact, to know the Son was to know the Father, for they are one in purpose. The first and utmost priority of Jesus was His family: His Father, His brothers, and His sisters.... Us. By choice, He served everyone that came across His path during His life. By choice, He loved everyone that ever lived, everyone that was alive, and everyone that would eventually live. By choice, He lived a perfect life and set the perfect example. By choice, He set the means of salvation for every child of God. And By choice he gave up His life to take it up again (by choice). These choices lead Him to bring to pass the greatest act of all time. The Atonement, the Infinite Sacrifice, our Means of Salvation. 

I hope that we can all learn from the desires, priorities, and decisions of our Savior Jesus Christ so that our actions become pleasing in the eyes of our Father. Don´t follow the example of Laman and Lemuel. Be grateful for all that the Lord has given you. Take the initiative by desiring to be a better person. Take the initiative by loving everyone and inviting them to learn about the restored Gospel. Jesus Christ is our perfect example. He is the staff in the desert. It´s easy enough just looking at Him with well shaped desires. I know it, I live it, I love it!

Elder Philpot

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Power-outage

What a crazy week it´s been! Since it´s been raining pretty continually, the river Colorado that`s about a mile away from Pichanal flooded super crazy! We actually passed over the river and, man let me tell you, it was mean looking. First of all the river is brown with mud and since the river has a shollow bed, the rapids were humongous, about the size of 10-20 foot waves in the ocean. Soon they shut the bridge down to vehicles and we had to walk over the bridge to get back to our area on Friday in the blazing, humid heat. A few hours after that, we heard that the bridge where the train crosses got carried away so we were afraid that the other ones were destroyed as well. Luckily they were alright but since then, the power and water have been shut off. Which was not okay because we were supposed to fill the baptismal font for our investigator Brenda`s baptism! For about 3 days, the power and water were out so we were suffering from the intense heat, lack of water, and anxiety for the baptism. Luckily, the missionaries in Oran had power and water so they started filling the baptismal font on Saturday morning. But, Oran is on the other side of the bridge so we hopped in a taxi and headed for Oran hoping that the bridge was still there and letting cars pass. Well, God answered our prayers because the baptism went through. I was really, really happy in spite of the diffulties. Brenda had been listening for a very long time and when I got here, we decided to change up the style a little bit. We started to see her progress a ton and the other week she told us that she was gonna get baptized. Sometimes we don´t know exactly why things happen but there´s one thing that I do know. When our Heavenly Father says that it´s time, there´s nothing that can stop His will. I´ve learned a lot on my mission, but I think that the biggest thing that I´ve gained is a way of trusting in the Lord when everything seems to be going wrong, or even when everything is going right. Our efforts can only take us so far. God´s efforts will take us farther that we could have hoped for. I know it, I live it, I love it! 

Elder Philpot

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Este es Mi Hijo Amado

Well, as I made known last week, I´ve been called to be a trainer! Or in other words, the father of a new born missionary, also known as ¨papi¨. My hijo is Elder Starkey and he´s a really cool dude. He reminds me a lot of my cousin Tyler so we get along just fine. This week has actually been one of the most fun weeks that I´ve had and it´s funny to think that when I received the call to be papi, I was a little bit un-excited. But, thanks to the fun times and the energy that the Lord has given me, we´ve been able to have lots of success. We´re starting to see the Lord´s hand in just about everything that we do and I know that it´s because we have a shared desire to work hard and leave the rest to our Heavenly Father. 

But, one of the most amazing experiences on my mission until now took place yesterday in Sacrament meeting. Since yesterday was the first day of March, we were able to have the fast and testimony meeting. As usual, after the bishop and the counselors give their testimonies there´s a little bit of a wait to see who´s gonna be the first one. After a few seconds, Raul Del Zotto who was recently baptized stood up and put himself in front of the 30 members that showed up. He tried to start a few times but was held back by tears. He began to testify of the goodness that the restored gospel brought to his family and the great change that he was able to see. Immediately afterwards, another recent convert, Flavia, stood up and also testified of the true church and the impact that it had in the life of her, being a single mother, and her 4 children. I guess I must´ve had major allergies because my eyes kept leaking water... I decided that I had to get up and share my testimony of the happiness that I´ve seen in families who accepted the restored gospel in their lives. After a few words I was already crying and telling the ward how thankful I was to be with them in this moment. It was one of the most powerful moments on my mission. I´ve come to gain a deep love for Pichanal and I´ve only been here a few months.

My testimony is sure. There is a God. He is our Heavenly Father. He sent us to the earth to have a family. That family can be eternal. This is the restored gospel. This is the Church of Jesus Christ, the only true church on the earth. There are people who are waiting for each one of you to help them see the light. I know it, I live it, I love it!

Elder Philpot

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