Monday, September 30, 2013 12:15 PM

Querido familia

Well mom it looks like you already stole the thunder of my email. You’ll find out why later. Whenever it is my ¨turn¨ for family home evening if you could read the quotes in preach my gospel in page 12 I believe that would be great. I especially like the one by Joseph F Smith. I will start with Dad’s birthday.... All of our citas fell through we were trying and trying and having no success, it was really hard. We picked up Pablo Bulacio to come with us to lessons that didn’t happen. (He is part of a part member less active family). Then to end the day we went to his house and had a lesson with him and his mom who are both less active members. The hermana confessed to us that she felt something was missing from her life that it wasn’t the same as before. We then talked about the importance of the sacrament and bore testimony of this sacred time to think about the Savior, His atonement, and how you will improve in the next week. As we spoke tears filled her eyes and I think now she knows what she was missing. We brought them to the Blanco baptism, I sent two pictures. It was a baptism that we did with the whole zone and 8 people were baptized! How exciting! Even though our "numbers" for Tuesday weren’t good I felt satisfied because we were there to say to Hermana Bulacio what she needed to hear and were able to witness the Savior and the gospel helping a person. I wish I could tell you that they came to church on Sunday but I can’t. It rained a lot in the morning and no one came. It was like God was testing the faith of the Ward because after church it didn’t rain any more, and most of the Ward failed the test. Where usually we have around 100 or more in sacrament meeting we had 24 or something. I was pretty disappointed to call Hermana Bulacio and hear her say they couldn’t come because of the rain. Oh well, patience in adversity. The meat of my message is about the Ward. I recently found out that the Ward doesn’t home teach the inactive families and that the Ward has basically no contact with them apart from what the missionaries tell them. Let me tell you right now that this is wrong. Missionaries are not here to do everything the Ward feels too uncomfortable to do; we really can’t do much good at all without the Ward. Recent converts are like babies; ultimately a person should have the faith that no matter the circumstance they will be true to the church. But recent converts don’t have that capacity yet. Missionaries have another job to do than babysit and aren’t always going to be there and the Ward needs to fellowship them. You don’t just except a baby to walk on its own without help from a parent, they need someone with more experience to lead and guide them until they can do it for themselves. There is one convert lady who has almost no friends in the church and talks to almost no one but is at church every single Sunday, and comes and cleans the church, and comes to every church activity. The other elders who baptized her said "we don’t even show her the support we should". There is a special place in the celestial kingdom for people like that, but the reality is that those types of people are few and far between and that often for a person to be like that they must first be helped by their fellow Ward members. I am not going to ask you to give a reference to the missionaries, if you do that is wonderful. I am going to ask you, that as I try to do my duty as a member of the church to reach out to others that you will do the same. Matthew 10: 37 and 38 says "He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not his cross and followeth after me, is not worthy of me." When I read that this week it was like, “Whoa, Am I really doing my part, I have taken His name upon me and am I reaching out to my neighbors and trying to help and love those outside my comfort zone? I’m not going to tell you want to do but I invite you to prayerfully consider what the Lord expects of you personally as a member of his church to do to reach out to your fellow brothers and sisters. Dad, you have a leadership position over this as president of the Elders Quorum in your role in home teaching. Thank you for making sure that those less actives are getting home taught. That might be one of the best things you can do. Jesus said that we don’t send doctors to those who are well we send them to those who are sick. The focus of a Ward should be on those that are "sick" and without the fullness of the blessings of the gospel in their lives. Something like a block party is exactly the kind of thing you should be doing and like you said all the people now know that you are members and feel a bit more comfortable in your home. So when they have an aunt die, someone loses their job, they have a kid going through a really rough time doing things they shouldn’t, they know that you have something special and could very likely come to you with questions. Keep up the good work my beloved family. Also, Dad I don’t really remember any of the stories of converts that you had on your mission, if you could send me an experience or two that would be awesome! Also for you returned missionaries I was reading a scripture that reminded me of you, It is Ammon after their work with the Lamanites glorying in the greatness of God. Alma 26:12 "Many mighty miracles we have wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name forever." so remember your missions and the many miracles that you witnessed and may you praise his name forever. This work is great and it is hard, harder than anything else I imagined but I don’t believe that I could really call myself a member of the church or a follower of Jesucristo if I wasn’t out doing it.

Love,

Elder Andrew

Monday, September 30, 2013 12:23 PM
I forgot to say I do get to watch general conference and Elder Dodge told me they have a Little room for the Yankees. Thank goodness, my castillano is improving, but not that much haha. In the church at like 1 to 3 and 5 to 7 we don’t watch priesthood because it is so late, the people here just all like to party.