Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Aguas Sanantes



Hey Guys
First I want to start off by thanking everyone that wished me a happy bday, love you all and your letters always make me smile and strengthen me. Well, Elder Pearson and I continue to work hard in the blazing heat here in Iguala. We were witnesses to countless miracles last week leading up to a wonderful baptism on Saturday. We baptized a 20 year old girl on saturday named Yemir. Her whole family got baptized like 3 months ago but she didnt because she didnt live here before. She has had a ton of trials in her life, especially while she was living with her grandparents. Her family prayed that they could become a complete family in the Gospel and that she could come live with them someday again. Well, that prayer was answered a couple weeks before we got here as she came to live with her family for the first time in her life. Due to all the trials she has had to go through, Yemir didnt believe in God. She didnt believe in God even up to Wednesday of last week. We were praying for her all week that she could get baptized on Saturday. She had gone to church a few times and had liked it, but still didnt have much hope or faith in her life. Our lessons with her this past week were some of the most spritual times of my life. In every instance, we were recieving revelation for this daughter of God so that she could prepare to be baptized on Saturday. When she told us she didnt believe in God, we promised her that if she read the Book of Mormon that night and prayed to ask God is He exists, that she would get an answer and would be able to be baptized on Saturday. Well, Yemir exercised the little tiny bit of faith that she had. She recieved an answer that night that God lives and that she needed to be baptized. It was another evidence to me that God does exist, that He answers prayers, and that this is the true chruch on the earth of Jesus Christ. That experience also reminded me that it doesnt matter who you are, what you have done, how your life was before, every child of God can recieve that same answer that Yemir got and that I too have recieved. She only had the faith that God exists, that the Book of Mormon is true, and that Jesus Christ is her Savior and that was enough to get baptized. That truly is all any one person needs to know to enter the waters of baptism in order to recieve a remission of their sins and the gift of the Holy Ghost. Those waters heal us. Those waters healed Yemir of everything that happened in her past 20 years of her life and now she is starting a new life in Christ. I wish you could have seen her bright smiley face after she was baptized and later confirmed on Sunday. She is an example to me of true faith. We experienced another miracle yesterday as we challenged one of our investigators to be baptized. He had been waiting to get baptized so that he could do it with his family that is investigating as well in California when he goes back. But this man put his faith in Christ and accepted to be baptized this coming Saturday, without his wife and kids. He isnt letting anything get in the way of his desire to follow the example of his Savior. So we will be planning that baptism throughout the week and we plan to continue to baptize every week in this area because there are so many people waiting to hear our message and so many people who have the faith to follow their Savior Jesus Christ. Another fun thing we are doing in this area is offering service through teaching english. There is a sister in the ward here who is fluent and who teaches young adults in a small little school downtown. She has invited us once a week to come and have conversations with the people in english so they can practice speaking and understanding the accent. There are 6 students and they range from ages 15-28. They are really funny and love speaking with us. Obviously we are not allowed to talk to them about our church but when they ask us questions about it, we answer haha! So we actually had a really spiritual conversation the first time we went last week. We can tell that there are a few of them that are really interested in our message. We hope to start teaching some of them later but they would have to approach us and ask us to hear the message. But we are going to continue going there every week. It is really interesting though because I realized that people are more honest in a second language than their first. They dont have a very big vocab of english so they ask us very direct questions and really listen carefully to our answers. I have seen it with spanish as well. I feel I am able to be more honest in spanish and more direct sometimes which is perfect for being a missionary. Well I hope all is well with everyone and that you all have a great week. I know that the combination of the Book of Mormon and prayer can change a life in an instant and I extend the challenge to everyone who reads these letters to do what Yemir did and I promise you will get an answer because He has answered me.
Love,
Elder Stutz


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