Week #84 March 15, 2018

hi  sorry this email is a little late. This past Saturday Alejandra was baptized and on Sunday she was confirmed. She has know for a while that she wanted to get baptized and that the church is true but just wasn't´t able to stop smoking. 

They find the hoarder houses from nonmembers usually. And it was super hard for the guy he kept getting made and digging through the trash to get his stuff out.  

This week we had a really cool experience. we were walking and saw two hermanas from the ward and we went over to talk to them and while we were talking with him a friend of one of the ladies came over and talked to us and one of the sisters invited her friend to have us go over with her to visit her. So later that week we went over to teach them and we have now taught them twice both times with both the members present.  The friends name is maria jose and we are also teaching her husband juan carlos.  So we are actually teaching a family and  teaching them with members-the ideal situation to teach someone but something that rarely happens.  It is so great to have members involved in the teaching. if we had just knocked on there door i am 99% sure the wouldn't´t have been receptive, but teaching them with a friend makes all the difference. I was listening to a  talk from elder ballard and  i believe he said that if every active member of the church would bring one person into the church every year the world would be converted in 12-13 years. The only problem with our great family is that they are going to move at the end of the month. 

One scripture I really liked from this week is in Joseph Smith history 73 and 74 it talks about how joseph smith and oliver cowdery´s minds where illuminated after receiving the holy ghost and they began to understand the scripture. I have thought about that and I have realized that I pretty much don´t know what it feels like to read the scriptures without the holy ghost and it has been that way for a long time, and for that is is not difficult to understand the scriptures. but almost everyone here has such difficulty reading and understanding what they read. And that is another reason the word of wisdom is so important. there are also drugs and alcohol interfering with the minds ability to comprehend.  

bye i love you 

Elder Austin