He began by giving some "guidelines" for the meeting. "I
will not play ´guess what I´m thinking´ when I ask questions. I will
not ask you to stand up and tell me what three things we promise to do
when we´re baptized. Because you´d be standing in front of an apostle of
the Lord, freeze up, forget, and get embarassed! I WILL NOT ask hard
questions," he said. He sent us three talks to study about three weeks
ago and asked questions about what we learned from them and then
expounded on that. It was FABULOUS.
I was sitting in my
hammock a few weeks ago talking to Hermana Bailey about how excited I
was to see another apostle in the mission and what a privelege it would
be, when I felt the strong impression that we really needed to prepare
ourselves spiritually for this meeting so that we could get the most out
of it, rather than just show up. I was reminded of the good 6 weeks of
preparation that I put into general conference a while back when I then
received the answer to serve a mission.. Because I had prayed, fasted,
and studied the words of the prophets, I had questions in mind and
received revelation that forever changed my life....and the exact same
thing happened this last Friday. I don´t think I have EVER in my life
felt the spirit as strong as I did during that meeting. I had questions
answered that I didn´t even know I had! First time that has happened to
me.
Something that touched my heart was one of the stories he
shared, and this one I think I will remember forever. During the week
that he was here, they were notified of some members in the area where
they were with a young baby who was veryyyyy sick and was in need of a
blessing. They called the family and Elder Bednar asked the father if he
had given his baby a priesthood blessing, and he said yes. Elder Bednar
then explained to them that he couldn´t give a better blessing than the
father had done, and that they both held the same priesthood. He holds
more keys, but it´s the same priesthood in regards to a blessing, right?
Because of the tightness of their schedule with back to back meetings,
they weren´t able to make it out to see the family. There just wasn´t
time...the next day they had a meeting in one of the nearby wards, and
as Elder Bednar finished his talk and walked out, he shook hands of a
few members. He saw a mother, holding a young baby, but that the baby
was covered in a blanket. He walked over to the young mother, asked if
he could see her baby, and simply put his hand on his head, and then
left the chapel. When they got into the van, his translator asked him
how he knew that THAT was the baby,,and he simply responded....."I
didn´t."
The Lord works in mysterious ways, and my testimony
has been strengthened of the way the Lord speaks to his servants, the
apostles and prophets. I know that they are called of Him to lead the
church under the direction of Jesus Christ. Something that impacted me
was that while he was telling the story, speaking perfectly fine, not
even choking up, his translator right next to him could hardly speak. He
was doing all he could to translate and keep speaking so that the
Latinos could understand, but you could tell that he, as well as each
one of us, fetl the spriti incredibly strong throughout the whole
meeting.
It was a wonderful week to say the least, one that I won´t forget.
Today
were transfers, but Hermana Bailey and I are staying together in
Madero. They took the elders out so now we have the whole ward and a
MUCH bigger area. We´re excited! We´re gonna stay busy and get to work
with the investigators and awesome members over here.
That´s it for this week :)
les amo!
Hermana Maki
Photos- meeting wtih Elder Bednar. I´m the tall one on the far right by the window.
2-
trying a new fruit called "maracuya" that comes from Brazil! Some
awesome investigators always make juice for us when they can get ahold
of the fruit. I liked it so much I drank 4 glasses...or 5.
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