Hello my wonderful family. Times and seasons and people stay but some things are consistent. Missionaries serve missions, people become converted and are baptized, but some things are constant in our lives: love for family, for the Savior, mom ironing, our family playing pounce (nanie not being excluded from that!), and my love for the Beatles. oh yes!
I have been informed recently that Eric Whitlock is the 'Online Assistant to the President'. What does that mean? I have no clue. but did I laugh when i heard that. That was my little laugh for the day, and I know dad enjoyed that. Eric is amazing. and funny.
So this week has been wonderful. Mom, my haircut turned out nice, I was starting to look like Wolverine from X-men. hahaha. but it was good.
So some things have happened since last week. We had interviews with President Cordon, which was wonderful. We have been working really hard this week. I was reflecting on the week last night and I was thinking about how it´s been a while since we baptized. But the spirit spoke to me that the Lord was happy with our work and I started talking to Elder Schmidt about our investigators and we became very happy because when we arrived here in 4 Barras (not 4 quatro mom. hahaha) we had some old investigators that were on track to be baptized but they were getting baptized just because they had friends in the church or because their wife wanted them to get baptized. These past few months I have been thinking about the talk by Sister Cordon on grace and the talks by Brad Wilcox and just reflecting on the importance of being baptized. I realized that (while baptism is SUPER) important it is only 1 of 3 important elements as described in Moses 6:59-60. It is super important to be baptized, but it is also important to receive the Holy Ghost AND repent. We have seen a lot of our investigators start to gain real, personal testimonies of the truthfulness of the Gospel.
For example: we are teaching Marcos and Vanessa. They need to get married, we have been teaching them for almost 8 weeks. JUST last week, he read for the first time since the Elders started teaching him. We felt impressed to teach them about the Priesthood. We were looking at his teaching record and realized all the missionaries have taught all the lessons like 10 times, but none of the laws and ordinances. So we felt impressed to teach about Priesthood. We gave him a triple-combination and marked things to read. HE READ! and even had questions. He said "Why is it that men can hold the priesthood and women can´t?" I thought of President Hall and my interview to receive the Melk. Priesthood when he asked the same question. We chatted a little and HE answered his own question! HE asked for 2 Sundays off per month. HE wants to get married because HE wants to get baptized now.
Another couple we are teaching Mateus and Tiele we have been teaching them for about a month. He walked up to our new ward mission leader (Which is Baiano- HE IS SO AWESOME) and said that HE wanted to get married because HE wants to get baptized. We also figured out the problems of a few other investigators.
We started teaching Dara who is the sister of an RM she read the parts we marked in the BoM and felt so good when she read it that she gave it to her mom. Her mom felt so good when she read it that she passed it to someone on the bus to read. Dara is traveling for a little bit but we will work with her when she comes back and so we have seen it with many of our investigators.
I was retaught by the Spirit the importance in the preparation of baptism and repentance. We need to repent ever day. It is a huge part of the first principles of th Gospel of Jesus Christ.
I am absolutely giddy! (you know that that means it can only be 1 thing...) This month our mission will be visited by 2 Apostles. We will be visited by Elder M. Russel Ballard and Elder Neil L. Andersen. I am super excited. They are coming like the 27th of January. (I am telling everyone that they are coming to visit me on my birthday) HAH. well.
I love you all so much. I really do. I am so grateful for the support you have given me this far and that you are continually giving me. I am grateful for your love and your prayers. I am feeling them. Thanks so much for everything, and for allowing me to have the best 2 years ever.
Don´t Stop Believing!
Com Amor,
Elder Askins
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