Families CAN be together forever!

    The zone leaders ( leaders over a few of us missionaries) have this family that they are teaching that are from Guatemala and they speak pretty good English they were praying a lot to know if they should attend the Spanish branch of the English ward. To help them make this decision they invited Las Hermanas to join in on one of the lessons to see what would best and so we went to a lesson with the Elders. The Elders were teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ how we can follow Christ better in our lives. The couple was reading and seemed to me that they were progressing nicely. Hermana Ososrio started to testify of Baptism and how it is a great step and a great show of our faith when we follow His commandments and how we receive many blessings. I am not exactly sure what happened but we switched into Spanish and so they could understand better. As soon as we switched into Spanish they had a lot of good questions.
It is always fun to teach when there are well thought out questions. Sergio had a question about those who were not baptized in this life and they we looked at the zone leaders so that they could answer. Something about this turn of conversation sparked a thought in Dulce's mind (the wife) and she shared an experience that she had with her 8 year old son about a passage in the bible.
Her son was reading the bible and came across the story when a man asked Christ that if a woman married 7 times in this life, who would be her husband in the next life. Her son had asked her what that meant .She interpreted the answer that Christ gave to mean that when we are in heaven we will not recognize our family or our loved ones.

When Dulce said this she was very distraught, she said then, What is the point of anything that we do here on earth if we can not even live with our families in heaven who mean everything to us? Heaven will not be heaven without my family.

I don't remember exactly what happen but there seemed to be some silence after the question. The thought came into my mind to teach about the sealing power of the priesthood (Matthew 16:19) that was restored through Joseph Smith and the power of the temples. We all testified of the importance of the family and how it is God's purpose to seal families together forever and that we were given families as a blessing and that God does not intend to tear them apart. The spirit was so strong and Dulce started to cry. She said that her family means everything to her and that she wants that and that she agrees that families are special. The spirit was so strong and I saw right before my eyes the spirit testifying to Dulce that this was true. In that moment, I saw Dulce change. She gained her testimony from that moment. Afterward she had a look of hunger in her eyes. She wanted to learn all she could. We shared a few more things with her and she asked a few more questions but it went from her learning to her believing all in one precious nanosecond. It was a miracle that we would all blessed to witness. From that moment she believed. I was thinking about how wonderful the gospel is to those who accept it. She has been looking for this and now she has it. I don't know what has happened since. The spirit was there and we were all instruments in the Lord's hands that night.

The spirit is the "Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." (John 14:26)
The Lord teaches us His truth through the Holy Ghost and when we truly want to know all we have to do is search ponder and pray and the Lord will teach us all things.



 I love this gospel. I know that it has the answers to all those who humble search for answers. God is in this work and and miracles happen.

I Dont Want To Get Lost!!!

Last night we were coming home from the completely other side of town and what happened is an experience that I will never forget. We as missionaries always are with our companion, it is one of the rules as a missionary to protect us. And so we were driving together as usual. It was raining and it was dark in a weird part of town. My companion is driver. Our goal was home. It was late and time to turn in. My companion was very distracted because of a wierd enounter with one of our members. The roads we were taking were the main ones and I had thought that she knew where we were going, so I let her take it. Well...we ended up in a weird side of town and she told me, " I have no idea where we are or where we are going." So I told her where to go. Left here and right here and stay on this road until this road and so on. We came to a main road and when I had said to take a right she decided not to listen to my soft directions. It was quiet and we could hear each rain drop hit the hood of our car. I thought that maybe she was going to go a different route that was more familiar to her. As soon as she decided to go a different way, I stopped giving her directions until she asked for them. Although I never got lost and always knew where we were, we were driving in circles because she made the choice to not listen to my directions.

Eventually we got home safe and sound. The events of that night got me to thinking about how that is very similar to our journey here on earth. Our destination never changed but without the correct directions to get there we would have never have gotten there. If we didn't care where we were going then it wouldn't have mattered what street or which direction. But we DO have a distinct destination for our journey here on earth. God knows how to get there and He is telling us every single turn to take and He tells us the fastest way to get there BUT He cannot drive for us! We have to get there ourselves. He cannot make that choice for us. They are soft and they are correct. We have to listen to Him in order to get there. There is no other way. The Holy Ghost is the way that God tells us where to go. If we choose not to listen, that is our way of telling Him that our way is better and that we don't need help to get there and then He will stop giving us direction to us until we humble ourselves and ask for it again. If we do something that drives the spirit away then we cannot get to our destination until we do what is necessary to get Him back with us. I  Know that is true and to me it is a testimony of how important the Gift of the Holy Ghost is to us.

What about you? What do you think?