Well, this week was pretty good! We had a
combined zone conference, which was excellent, we had Elder Don r. Clarke
of the 70 come and instruct us! I feel like were being a bit spoiled with all
these general authorites coming and visiting us! It was an excellent meeting.
He gave us some excellent instruction on the steps of conversion, finding and
not acting like an idiot, because were missionaries. Everytime someone answered
a question with "yup" he said "now I know your from utah- show
some manners and say 'yessir' like they do here in the south". Its good to
have a little rebuking once in awhile. He was just revently the area president
of central america, and he talked a little bit about how spanish people will
say yes to everything and then not do anything and I thought "YES!"
its so true. They just are so afraid of dissapointing anybody so they say yes
theyll come to church, read the bom and even get baptized and then what action
do we see them take? None! Its kind of depressing, really, when you think about
it. But of course, we cant get down on ourselves about it. He said another
thing: "you always have to be happy about this work. You may not get down
on yourselves, or get upset, or cry. Ok, maybe you can, but only for 5 minutes
in every 6 week transfer. and you need permission from president. And he
doesnt have the authority to authorize it, so he has to call me. If I give you
permission, it must be done in the bathroom so your companion doesnt get like
that as well." Just an interesting way to look at it. That we must always
be happy about the work, but never content about- always striving to improve.
I mentioned last week how the Lord prepares his
people to recieve the gospel. I saw another example of that this week.
After zone conference, we went on exchanges with some elders that came from
laffayette and were staying the night for a meeting tomorrow. We were able
to teach a good lesson to Omar, who is just lacking some faith. He understands
it pretty well, but I dont think is really putting the effort forth to recieve
the blessings he needs. The other elders found a really cool family! A family
with four daughters! We went back and I got to teach them for the first
time, and they are awesome. Except for the dad- he basically said "I have
my religion and I dont want to change" But when we asked if we could teach
everyone else, he said thatd be fine. So we had a lesson with just 2 of the
daughters, and she remembered almost everything they had taught her the last
time and totally caught on to everthing that we told her this time incredibly
quick. We told her the way to know the truth about the book of Mormon was
through prayer, and the answer would come by the holy ghost. We aksed if she
had ever felt the holy ghost, and she said no. I said that she probably had,
but just didnt recognize it. Later in the lesson, we asked if she understood
everyhting and she said pretty much, but it was all pretty new, but that she
had heard most of it a few years ago from an LDS friend. I aksed if she had
ever gone church with them, and she said yes, and she still remembers the peace
she felt when she went, and that she had never felt a peace like that in any
other church. So immediatly I helped her connect it- That was the holy ghost!
See, you have felt it before, but just didnt recognize it! So it was neat to
see that she had felt the holy ghost years before so that some day when she met
the missionaries again and we talked about the holy ghost that she would have
an experience to look back and connect to that the missionaries
could testify about. Cool stuff!
So besides that, nothing really different this week.
We unfortunately didnt have anyone at church with us. Well, hope everyones
doing great! would love to hear from you! any one!
-Elder Cardon
1343 jade ave,
Baton Rouge, LA 70810
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