11.16.2010

The second week of my favorite month is over and the start of Christmas lights is fast approaching. In the excitement of the concert miracle I forgot to mention a church miracle that had happened the day before. As previously mentioned we are teaching the Franco family and have recently started teaching the grandchildren of Hno. and Hna. Franco. They love when we come over and we love going over. On Sunday morning we invited them to come to church, thinking that as usual it would only be Gabriel who came. However, when we showed up to Gospel Principles we looked in to the classroom to see Gabriel and Hna. Franco! And they told us that all four children were in their respective primary classes. They were so well behaved and they loved it! They are such good kids. We are hoping that Danny will be able to be baptized by his dad, and then when his little cousins turn 8 they too will be able to get baptized. Recently we have been having a lot of time in our area, which we enjoy. We had 2 full days last week and 2 again this week. On Thursday we had exchanges. Hna. Nielsen came to Hna. Rodio and I went to Hna. Nielsen's companion, a new sister. Unfortunately she was sick the whole day so we weren't able to get much done, but Hna. Rodio reported that our area was great. We went back to the VC on Friday and were there every day this weekend, but were able to teach almost every hour we weren't there. This is such a busy and blessed area, but I find that I can only praise each of the areas I was in. I feel blessed to say that, and blessed that I had such great areas and that the Lord helped me love each one of them.
Yesterday was stake conference for the entire state of Arizona, broadcast from Salt Lake to all 90 stakes! It was cool to be a part of that. Bishop Burton, Sis, Thompson, Elder Cook, and Pres. Monson all spoke. Elder Cook has roots in AZ and I agreed with all the praise he gave it. Much of the conference, especially Pres. Monson's talk, was focused on 'rescue.' We went to the morning session and the English sisters (who went to both) told us that before the afternoon meeting our stake president got up and said "Knowing what is coming, I feel prompted to tell you that there are around 500 less-active members within our stake boundaries alone, enough for a ward." Hearing that statistic was crazy, 500! That is a lot of work ahead, but we have a great stake and I only hope that we as missionaries can keep up with the great work that the members here do.
Recently we have been reading the Book of Mormon with Carlos almost every night. It has been a really great learning experience for us as we have read from the beginning, one chapter at a time, trying to think as our investigator thinks. I have noticed that while the Book of Mormon can be read any direction, inside and out, and studied in any order, it really has great power when read from the beginning. We learn as Nephi learns, gain our testimony as he gains his, truly line upon line and precept upon precept. I had never noticed the emphasis the first chapters make on the importance of scriptures until reading it with someone who currently doesn't treasure the scriptures. It takes us reading with him for him to read, yet in almost every single one of the first chapters of Nephi, the importance of scriptures, the purpose of the Book of Mormon, and the gratitude of Nephi and Lehi for the sacred words are shown. I think that is just so cool! And Carlos is so attentive when we read. Well, not neccessarily attentive, because it looks like he isn't processing a single word, but afterwards when we ask him what he learned he is able to point out even the littlest details that it takes members years to notice. We are just praying that he will begin to make the necessary effort to live the gospel and not just believe it.