March 6, 2017

What a great week! Elder Harris and I keep seeing miracle after miracles after miracle! So this week we had a lesson set up to teach one of our recent converts who was baptized before I got to Marietta. She has a ton of family close by in the area and just randomly decided to bring her sister and her financee who are non-members to our lesson! We of course weren't complaining at all, we were stoked! Haha so we taught all of them about the Book of Mormon and the benefits we receive from reading it often. They really enjoyed it and accepted the invitation to read it AND they even showed up to church on Sunday!! I feel like this area is probably the closest thing I'm gunna get to serving in South America :) Hahaha!

As I've been serving my mission, I've noticed that Sunday seems to be the miracle day of the week. We had 6 investigators at church!!! That's pretty amazing if you ask me especially in the WVCM. We have been seeing so many miracles here and I just love it! I know that God is really manifesting His power here in this area and I feel so lucky to be able to witness it!

So Mom asked me to write about something I've been focusing on lately so here's something I've been giving a lot of thought to recently. Since the beginning of my mission and even before I've been really focusing on trying to refining my skills as a teacher of the gospel. But I have noticed that as I've gained some experience as a missionary and improved my teaching skills drastically, I sometimes neglect the most original and basic elements of being a Christ-like teacher and that is Faith and the Holy Ghost! That is really where great teachers become powerful not because of any eloquence of speaking. 

I think we sometimes forget or neglect the most important and basic things we have always know we should do. Whether you're a missionary or a newly baptized member of the church, we must remember those basics and the power that comes from the basics of the gospel. Faith in the Savior Jesus Christ is the first principle of the gospel for a reason! We ought to seek for opportunities to develop our faith on a daily basis. We will be distracted with other things in our life from time to time, but if we remember that faith is where it all beginnings, we will see the power of God working in our lives. Elder Bednar taught in a missionary conference that the more we know about Faith, the more we will focus on it. I've definitely experienced that and know that it's true! 

Well that's mostly it for this week! I love you all very much and I hope you know how much your Heavenly Father loves you too! :) have a great week!

Elder Barazoto