Stake Conference

Dear Mom,

Mason looks like he had a great time at prom and that’s a killer pr! Tell him good job. Also...Anna is going to High School already??

Elder Eaton should leave on the 30th but goes to São Paulo first and then will get here on the 8th of Abril I think. If you would like to send him with a big jar of peanut butter for me here, that would be welcome! haha. Only if he has space in his bag though.

This week was another good one. We had a training meeting with all of the district leaders in the mission. President and Sister Fortunato talked about the importance of being a leader. They said that a leader needs two things: To know how to discern and be consecrated. Elder Stephen L Richards said this about discernment

"The highest type of discernment is that which perceives in others and uncovers for them their better natures, the good inherent within them. It’s the gift every missionary needs when he takes the gospel to the people of the world. He must make an appraisal of every personality whom he meets. He must be able to discern the hidden spark that may be lighted for truth. The gift of discernment will save him from mistakes and embarrassment, and it will never fail to inspire confidence in the one who is rightly appraised."

Cool stuff. I'm working to develop this more.

Elder Juergens and I gave a training on finding for new investigators. Preach My Gospel says that nothing happens in missionary work until we find someone to teach!

Baptism of Robson with Elder Marsh and Elder Juergens

I compared finding new investigators to pearl divers. Back in the day, they would dive down deep into the waters (sometimes 100 feet) on one breath of air looking for pearls. The problem is that they couldn’t know which oysters would have pearls in them until they were opened.  When they dove down, they would grab as many oysters as they could and then surface with them to see which would be holding the valuable pearls (a very low percentage of oysters have pearls naturally). I said that every dive is like a week in the mission, every oyster is a new investigator, and every pearl is a baptism. In a week we can surface after finding only one new investigator, but it won’t be likely that we will find a pearl, or in other word, have a baptism.  If we want to increase the number of baptisms, we first have to increase the number of new investigators that we find! The truth is that we don’t know which new investigators are the elect of God until they have decided to follow the gospel and be baptized in his church.  "For mine elect hear my voice and harden not their hearts."-D&C 29:7

 

Robson was baptized last week! It was awesome and he is just ecstatic with the decision that he made! We are hoping to help another young man to be baptized this weekend too! We'll just have to see what miracles are about to happen!

I love you so much,

Elder Marsh 

PS   7 people were baptized this past weekend after stake conference!

We got a new stake president.  He is the brother of our old Stake President haha.

Baptism of 7 after Stake Conference

Elder Mazagartti of the 70 came and said some powerful things. He said that chastity, exaltation, and glory are the same word