A bitter-sweet conference week....

Me, Raul, Alicia, and Elder Perez

Hey Friends and Family. Family and Friends. Whoever still reads this haha...?

I hope everyone is doing wonderful and that you all watched conference this weekend. I don’t have my notes, but I wanted to share some of my favorite talks, from memory.

I really loved Elder Bednar's talk about how the priesthood is active, not passive. Too many priesthood holders out there wait to be acted upon instead of acting and how it’s a greater sin to have a dormant priesthood instead of not having it at all.

I loved Elder Nelson's throw down on the big bang theory, a renowned scientist, making fun of all those scientist out there who claim there is no God and the world happened by chance. Also how the spiritual and physical gifts we have in our lives should not be taken for granted.  We need to give thanks to God.

Elder Cook said a few things that I really loved because of things I have to deal with currently and have had to deal with on my mission. Something like, you could have all the proof or facts in the world that the Gospel is true, but without a testimony built on faith, through prayer and reading, those things mean nothing.

I can’t remember who commented about "Authority and Power of the Priesthood, maybe Elder Scott? But he said there is a difference between receiving the Authority of the Priesthood, but without the Power of the priesthood, your priesthood can not be truly represented.

There are more but it will have to wait till next week.

The reason I call it a bitter sweet conference is because we had a grand total of 0 investigators come. Our investigator pool is very large, we found ourselves planning for 16 investigators last week. All which were invited, offered rides, called to remind, fellowshipped to come, and basically not one came to it. With excuses ranging from "being to Mexico" to "I have a relative in town that just showed up at my house" it was quite the site to see. On the other hand, I learned so much from conference that it made up for no one coming. Both my companion and I think that the reason that no one came is that God needed us to learn something from conference, and if our investigator would have came we would have had to watch conference in Spanish. So in that sense it was a blessing.

Other than that, we found two new families this week and they are just wonder full. One is 4- generation of women that were excited to hear the gospel and all set baptism dates. The other family was found for us by some faithful English missionaries, knocking in one of the hardest areas to knock due to the amount of Spanish there is. The girl that invited them back is almost 21 and is living with a younger brother and her mother. Both her and her bother set dates as well. We want to extend a date to her mother but sadly, she was asleep when we did. Their eagerness to hear the gospel is moral boosting; the only problem is that the father lives in Juarez and they go to Juarez many Saturdays and Sundays to see him. So it could be a huge struggle to get them to church. Never the less, the Lord has blessed us for the experience and they went to church this past week and we now have 10 investigators with a baptism date.

The zone leaders, when they called to congratulate us told us that we hold over half the baptism dates in the entire Zone. Then this week the sister missionaries in our same ward set 5 more dates as well. So our ward alone has 16 baptism dates. So they better step it up on fellowshipping.

My recent converts Alicia and Raul Castillo went to the temple to do baptisms last Tuesday! And Loved It! The thing I am most happy for is that I will still be on my mission when they are able to be sealed in the temple for time and all eternity. What a blessing that will be!

Other than that I learned so more things about my companion. He is currently dating a girl that lives in Saudi- Arabia, who he met in an online game that is a lot like world of warcraft. He says he is going to marry her (even though he has never met her in person), but the problem is that he is Mormon and she is a Muslim. In order for her to come to the USA and be married he said she had to fake her own death or something and never talk to her family again. Apparently by law, a Muslim father is allowed to kill his daughter if she wants to marry someone who is Christian. So idk if that gives you any idea what he is like but that basically sums him up. Haha

Until next week……

-Love Elder Stewart