Hey everyone,
Everything is great down here in Mexico, the sky is always blue
except to for the once a day massive rain storm. This last week has been fairly
normal with daily lessons and language study. There were a few bumps in the
road at the beginning of the week because the district had a little argument;
but we were all able to work it out and everything is awesome now. The language
is getting easier and easier to understand; even though when I talk to natives
they talk really fast and it’s hard to catch everything they say. The weeks are
starting to fly by even though the days themselves seem super long. It’s crazy
to think that I only email one more time and then I am out in the field! All I know
is I’m super prepared to play basketball when I get out there (cuz apparently
that’s all we do on p-day in the field and in the CCM) but maybe not quite
ready to teach native Spanish speakers.
A great quote that I heard this week from one of the Elders is,
"Christ never gave up on you so don’t you dare give up on him." It’s
a very direct and powerful statement because Christ never did and never will
give up on us, so we need to be sure that we live every day with a remembrance
of what he did for us. We always need to live like he would want us to live
even, actually especially, when the times are hard because that is when we show
our true colors and if we will follow him or give into the adversary.
So my favorite experience from this week happened only last nigh,t
and it is why I titled this email, "The church is true". So to start
off I have to tell you all about what Elder Stoddard and I discussed yesterday
morning. We were going over how our companionship was going and how well we
were teaching. We both thought we were doing pretty well and that we were
pretty good at bringing the spirit into lessons, but we also agreed that we
hadn’t had a super spiritual lesson yet and we should try to have one. So later
on that night we taught one of our new investigators named Ryan. Before the
lesson we said a companionship prayer for help and I asked for us to be guided
by the spirit in what we said and taught. We entered the lesson with the plan
to ask what he had questions about with the church, and to answer to the best
of our ability. He started asking about some things he had heard about Joseph
Smith. What he had been told was that Joseph was just a crazy man who decided
to start a church just so he could get people to follow him and that he was not
really a prophet of the Lord. So we started to answer these things, but by the
end he still was a little uncertain and thought the church was a little odd. I answered
that the church did seem strange because it holds some truths that no other churches
have, one of which was the idea that you will live forever with our family,
sealed for all eternity. The spirit was definitely guiding the lesson and it
prompted me to ask if he had ever lost someone close to him. He replied that he
had lost is grandpa and that he would love to live with him as a family again.
I was again prompted by the spirit to tell him the story of how I lost my aunt
Cyndi a few years ago. I testified that I knew that I would see her again
because I had prayed and gotten that confirmation. The spirit was so strong
that I started crying a bit, which was crazy cuz I don’t usually cry. Ryan was
crying a bit too and I know what I said was what he needed. Then to bring it
full circle I was prompted to make the statement, "If Joseph Smith is not
a prophet then the church is not true, and if the church is not true then there
is not hope on this earth that your family with be sealed to live together
forever; which is a thing I know is true, I know that we will live with our
families forever." I know that this church is true, I know that if we are
faithful and follow the commandments that God has given us we will live with
him, and with our families forever.
I love all of you and I am so grateful I have such awesome people
in my life that prepared me in different ways to share the gospel. You are all
awesome and I love hearing from you.
Love
Elder Porter
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