¡El Mano del Señor en todos lados! March 24th letter

From: "Heath Tenney" 
Sent: Monday, March 24, 2014 1:04:14 PM
Subject: ¡El Mano del Señor en todos lados!

Familia! 

Ahh. What a week. 

This week was soooo filled with grace and miracles. I look back at this week and am so filled with gratitude and amazement for all that The Lord did. He is so good. 

First of all, we have these investigators who are wonderful. They are all siblings, their names are Leidy, Alex, and Gabby. They have been going to church every week for over a month, have received basically all the lessons, but still were lacking something to commit to be baptized. I had been thinking and praying a lot about what they need, and the thought came that they don't understand the spirit. So we followed that prompting, and Ah! It was incredible. We had a family night with them with a member family and we talked about what is the spirit and how it feels. The members' testimonies were so powerful and simple. We encouraged them to look for those feelings as they read the Book of Mormon. 

We passed by just the next day and BOOM! They were so excited to tell us about it. They felt it! For the 1st time, they really felt the spirit and knew it was true! They told us that they really want to be baptized now. They still haven't committed to a date, but man, it was such a miracle to see the Lord change their hearts. 

All week, the Lord placed people in our path who are prepared. He prepared us and used us as instruments in His hands. The greatest moments are when we are teaching a lesson, I pause and instead of thinking what to say next, just think, "what does this child of God need?" and plead for the spirit to guide me. Then boom, the spirit breaks the silence. I begin teaching in a way I never ever could before and the spirit floods into the heart of every person in the room. That is grace. That is what the Lord did for us this week so many times. He really is the reason for any good that we do. He is the one who teaches and uses us as His hands. He amazes me every week. 

This week Deborah and Fernando were having a rough week because of some problems with moving. In Preach My Gospel, there is an amazing part in chapter 5 called "the questions of the soul" where is lists questions the Book of Mormon answers. Anyways, I love it because it can help anyone with any trial. So I invited them to read Mosiah 2 together and to start and end with a prayer. They did it, and in the middle of the night we received a message from her. She told us, "My Brothers, you cannot imagine the peace that the book brought to us. We were feeling stressed and all bad the whole day, but that changed everything. We feel so much closer to God. Thank you so much." Ah! It was yet another miracle. The Book of Mormon can help everyone. 

Lastly, this week we taught Brian. He is the son of a recent convert, but he has always had a really hard time staying for the lessons and never wanted to listen to us. But this week he told us he wanted to be baptized. He stayed focussed, participated in all of the lessons, and he started to pray! He was baptized yesterday. It was so great. 

I love this work. I really am so happy everyday. One of the biggest lessons I am learning on my mission is how to be unconditionally happy. In Preach My Gospel, where it talks about the Plan of Salvation, it says that the purpose of life is the have joy and prepare to stand before Heavenly Father. So having joy is our purpose of existing. Having joy and preparing to stand before God are designed to coexist. I love that in the gospel of Jesus Christ, we can have joy in every stage of life.

Have a wonderful week!

Love,

Elder Tenney