What a Great Conference!

October 6, 2010

Querido family and Friends

I hope that all of you are doing well. Thank you so much friends for your support. I got some letters this week and some packages too, These were complete surprises to me and I love it! Thank you so much for all of your love and support. You have no idea how much that means to me.

Our day has been crazy today. I was hoping to get around to writing you back and thanking you guys but I am not sure that I will get to it for each of you individually. I apologize. But I know that you all understand. Thank you for your patience and your love though! I wish that I could show my thanks with some action but, until I get some time, I hope a cyber "thank you" is going to have to work. So thank you, truly truly thank you!

I was doing some visits yesterday with President Alvarado and he made a cool observation about conference. He said that in the five sessions of conference that we had the opportunity to see, the scripture found in Amos 3:7 was used 11 times. "Surely the Lord God will do nothing save He revealeth His secret unto His servants los profetas." How blessed we were this past weekend to be able to listen to God's voice as we stood at the feet of His chosen servants. There was such a neat spirit present in each and every session of conference. I am so grateful for a loving Heavenly Father who loves us and who has called a living prophet in our days along with 12 apostles and other men and women to lead us and guide us. Conference was incredible and the things that were shared were so valuable and precious. I hope that you all had as much fun as I did watching conference. What a blessing it was! I loved it!

In the Saturday afternoon session we had a really neat experience with our investigator Annette. Annette was able to attend almost all of the sessions of conference. We went over Friday night after the zone council that we had in Bayamon. We wanted to check up on her and make sure that she was still planning to come. She told us that "of course she was planning to come." She told us that she had been praying all week that God will help her to know if this was the true church. From the very first song and introduction on Saturday we could just feel the spirit so strong with her. She was crying all day and, after Elder Anderson's talk on Saturday, she turned to us and said "I am so happy you guys. I have my answer. This is it! This is it!" It was so special to be able to witness a conversion occur right in front of our eyes. The spirit was working in Annette so powerfully this weekend and she left with a new testimony of the truth of this gospel. She knows as well as I do that we have prophets and apostles in our days who truly receive revelation from God. It was such a blessing to see the joy come to her life as she listened to the council of these servants of God for the first time in her life. I cant explain to you the joy that I felt but it was big! And it was real! I love conference. It is truly the most wonderful time of the year. Annette loved it too. Her and her 2 teenage children. One of her children is 17 and we are going to get him on a mission. They are all set for baptism on the 16th. I am so happy for them and there is nothing more that I could want for them! Well there is one thing . . . a temple visit in a year ;)

This great experience all started on Wednesday night. We had set up a great cita in a familiy's home this week with Annette. The family has been attending a different ward in our stake because our ward doesn't have a lot of primary kids. We have been working with them to get them back to our ward because we need these kingdom builders in our ward and we knew that if we could get them involved with Annette, miracles would happen. We took them over on Wednesday and the spirit in the home was so incredible. We don't get the chance to teach investigators in member's homes very often and the spirit that we felt in that lesson was so incredible. We were able to set up before hand. We asked the member family to look up a favorite talk from President Monson. The dad showed it on something called an i-pad and it got both Annette and her family so excited for conference. It was an incredible cita! The spirit that we felt in that home felt just like a Utah home. I was amazed at the difference in the lesson within the walls of a member's home. We are so blessed to have this gospel in our lives we are so blessed to have the blessings of this gospel all around us and in our homes!

We had six days of meetings this week so if it seems like I am drinking from a dry well that is why. Nonetheless, the week was full of great experiences and I learned a ton. Just most of it probably doesn't really interest you guys at home. Yesterday we had a long day starting way early with President Alvarado. At night I had the opportunity to go out to Yauco and do a visit with President Alvarado. I was so excited because President Alvarado is a master teacher and I knew that I was going to learn something incredible. Yauco is a different area in Ponce and the missionaries there are working with an incredible family. During the lesson we talked about all of the things that they had learned during conference and they said that one of their favorite talks was President Packer's talk. (Imagine that :) ) Anyways, we just started talking with the family. We talked about so many things. We began talking about their lives President Alvarado asked about their marriage. Out of nowhere they told of how they had been divorced but because of the economy had come back together. It was so incredible to be able to testify about the family and the importance of marriage after we had just heard it from the mouth of one of the Lord's apostles. This couple could feel the fire that was burning in our hearts and they could feel the need to get back together and get baptized. We invited them to get baptized and they said they knew that they needed to get married first. It was really cool because President Alvarado invited them to get married and he said that he would be pleased to do it. He also invited them out on a double date this weekend with him and his wife. Just one of the blessings that you get when you have a young mission president. The family needs the gospel so much in their lives. They are so strong and so loving. The gospel is also changing their lives and I could see last night that they were feeling the truth of our message! They are set to get baptized on the 30th of this month and I am so excited to see the change that has come in their lives.

I love this plan that God has for our families. I know that we are here in these days for a reason. As we learned in conference, there is so much going on in the world, so much junk and so many distractions, we also noticed that almost every speaker talked about the war in heaven. We are blessed to have this gospel in our lives. The war still continues and each day I am so blessed to be a soldier fighting for God's Army. I love this work and I love you guys. Thank you for all you do!

I am sorry for the email that was all over the place. But it has been hard to focus. Right in front of my face there is a large Puerto Rican man teaching an email class to about 40 other Puerto Ricans. They are talking about scam emails, and it's quite a hoot for them. It makes it a little difficult to write a solid email. I love you though. Just forgive me and know that I will repent and be more focused next week!

Love you all!

Thanks once again for all you do. I'm not sure how I will do it, but one day I will find a way to return your love!