Love Letter

- April 19, 2021

Dearly beloved reader, this is a love letter... It is also a mass email so don't get too excited

A quote:

"True love...
That beautiful arrangement
That dream within a dream"
- A Bishop

What I am learning:
To me true love is flexibility, selflessness, & vision.

Three behaviours of love I've identified that I am trying to apply
- recognizing the efforts that someone is already making and complimenting them on it!
- inspire. Recognize something that someone doesn't know how to do and demonstrate it in an environment where they can see the good consequences of said behavior. (It's hard to argue with results)
- Allow people to be themselves. We're not here to make people feel certain things, but to help them recognize and interperet what they are feeling.

Some Highlights:

Got a referral of someone named Ricardo and had a quick call to get to know him and he told us about some of the trials he's facibg including addiction. He lived far away and isn't in our teaching demographic but we decided to drop a Book of Mormon off with him right then in order to show him how much we want for him to read it. It's so epic to show up at the house of a referral like 20 minutes after they send a request for a missionary visit. We shared that the prophet, Russel M Nelson, has promised us that we can be immunized against addictions through the Book of Mormon. This was something deeply personal to him and he clearly was different after having heard this. A flicker of hope in his eyes. Understanding as to why it was so important.

The Persian elders street contacted someone who only spoke Spanish cus he 'seemed different.' they passed us his number and we sent him conference talks until we met up with him later in the week. He showed up to the park wearing missionary attire and told us that he wants to be a missionary 😁😇. As we read a scripture that promised blessings about baptism we stopped and he said that he felt an immense amount of peace that was indescribable. Needless to say this man is very excited and ready to be baptized even after the first visit.

Met sister Davila this week! She hasn't felt comfortable coming to church for 15 years. She told us that she feels like she has something missing in her life and we explained about ordinances and shared a scripture about how the sacrament makes us feel full spiritually. We just asked if she wanted those blessings (duh she wanted them). She said yes but that she was feeling rebellious but maybe in the future. We just laughed with her and invited her to think about it. Before the time we left she changed her mind and let us know she wants to start coming back! She convinced herself! (the spirit convinced her. Inviting someone to take some time to mull it over in a non confrontational way is the easiest way to get them to listen to the spirit). Now she is so hyped about coming and started listing all these good things that will come from it :))).