FOMO and Repentance

David and Alma Cardenas-Cano Familia texted my mom this week to see if I was still in Felipe Carrillo Ward. They wanted to surprise me and visit my ward so I could see their new son . I was so surprised!!!!  It was fun to see how much the twins have grown.  I love this family! I heard they are preparing to go to the temple!  I hope I am close by still so I can go with them! 

A note from mom...
Kyle, Brother Cardenas feels so close to you. They are grateful for your service in Monterrey!  They love you.  I am grateful for the Cardenas family.  They are the only ones who send me photos of you! You look so handsome and happy in this photo!!!

This family LOVES you!  It was a tender mercy for me to know that they wanted to come see you...especially since you have had Elder Sant'ana as a companion.  I know Heavenly Father is watching out for you!  The Cardenas Family was inspired to surprise you with a visit. It meant a lot to me that they came and they don't know you are having a hard companion right now...it's a testimony to me that  Heavenly Father is aware of you. ❤️❤️❤️ He will send you extra LOVE when you need it!
Hope you are well.  I love you! Love mom! 

Hey Everyone!

This past week was pretty awesome as we were able to have several edifying experiences!

First of all we were able to have our first zone conference with the New President Isaguirre and I truly felt his love and powerful witness of this work!  He taught the elders in such a direct yet humble way that we saw several big changes in our mission schedule, and we are going to be much more effective now!  One of the big things is that we will now have district meetings on Mondays which means I am going to running around even more on Monday, but also that we will start off the week strong and ready to dedicate all of Tuesday to proselyting!  We also were able to see about half of the mission and I took a few fotos with them but I don´t have my camara with me, sorry! 

We also had a wonderful time learning about the basic principles of Repentance unto Baptism and I loved a principle that we talked about that was shared by another mission president where he shared that many times we have heard about the term of FOMO or Fear of Missing Out which is basically defined as being afraid of missing out on an experience due to being in a different place.   Then our Presidente turned to us and shared, how many of you have FOMO from the presence of God? and this was revolutionary because many of us, including myself, we could see how repentance was this key to avoid missing out on living in God´s presence after this life!  If we can but turn our actions thoughts and behaviors to God then repentance becomes efficacious and we receive a fulness of joy that we are not going to miss out on the Celestial Kingdom! Daily repentance is our triumph song over the forces of Satan and as we overcome our weakness (Ether 12:27) we become more like He is!

I loved learning about repentance in this way and I testify that it is a real power!

I also was able to see this because I had intercambios with Elders from my past area because now they are in my district and as a final part of the intercambio we were able to visit some of my past converts and the tears of joy that fell down our faces was absolutely beautiful!  I stood there in silence as I saw how much the children had grown in the Cardenas Family, or how the Rosales Chino family is about to get sealed and so many details that I had lost in these past few months!

I know that this is the work of the Lord and even though I do not have fotos with me I will send them next week!  I know that with every soul that comes unto Christ there is great rejoicing in the heavens and i feel so priviledged to have seen a small piece of that this past weekend!

I love you all so much and hope you can feel the same joy that I have been feeling!

Elder Raven