This past Thursday, April 25th we were finally able to attend the Monterrey Temple with the Hermana Cecilia and her son Gerardo, who were recently baptized! It was so wonderful to be able to help her do the work for her daughter, Yuliana, that tragically passed away three years ago. The Hermana was absolutely vibrant as she came up out of the water, and her smile was contagious even until we were taking the Metro System all the way back home! I am going to attach some photos at the end so that you all can enjoy them!
Today they gave us the changes and that I am going to be staying here in Felipe Carrillo with Elder Chavez as the District Leader for one more change, and the same with the rest of my district! We have been seeing a whole ton of progress in our area in the Pedregal, and this change is going to be super exciting, just stay tuned!
We have been able to receive a lot of sweet references from the members, and thanks to the Relief Society President here for giving such a powerful talk on Sunday about member missionary work, we are doubling the amount of results we have been having here! Our leaders here are so amazing, and truly we can see the Lord guiding our little ward to something far greater!
As I was studying this past week I came across several scriptures that I was thinking of using to try to meet the need of the Hermano Alonso that we have been teaching and it was truly beautiful to receive this piece of revelation for my own life!
As I was reading in the Doctrine and Covenants section 78 verses 17-18 I came across these verses that I had heard before but that never struck me so hard as they did during this past week!
“Verily, verily, I say unto you, ye are little children, and ye have not as yet understood how great blessings the Father hath in his own hands and prepared for you;
“And ye cannot bear all things now; nevertheless, be of good cheer, for I will lead you along. The kingdom is yours and the blessings thereof are yours, and the riches of eternity are yours.”
This was absolutely perfect for Hermano Alonso because he has been struggling with the fact of feeling that God truly loves him, and we began to truly testify from this scripture and help him see how much God desires to bless us, and if we do our part that he really can create a mile of change out of our miniscule effort! Because of this, he is now a lot more receptive, he told us that he never wishes to miss a day of church, and that his sense of personal worth has grown immensely!
On a more personal note, I was able to receive guidance from the phrase, be of good cheer, I will lead you along. At times, I have seen Satan try to delude me from my worth as a child of God. He wishes for me to think that I lack importance or value, but I have grown to appreciate every day the ways in which the Lord makes me His Hands here in the little corner of Monterrey! That He truly can revolutionize my life and make me new, more dedicated, more humble, and more abundantly blessed, if I can just keep to the basics of the work, love the people, and seek the Spirit. This is something that can truly create a successful missionary out of my flawed efforts, and will help us leave many souls touched by the love of Jesus Christ that we demonstrated through listening to the Spirit! I love the fact that this is a gospel of miracles, of divine blessings, and that we have divine guidance even when we feel down, and that our loving Savior and Heavenly Father see us for who we can become and not for the small mistakes we make in the day-to-day! I truly love this gospel! This is the Church of Jesus Christ, and we are so blessed to have the opportunity to prove our valor before God, and decide to return to live in His Presence.
These verses also brought me right back by the the conference talk given by Elder Renlund about the means by which we can receive the blessings which God has for us. I am going to place a link here for everyone to read it one more time because it is just so good!
I love you all!
Que disfruten sus bendiciones!
Elder Raven
