Week 50

Hola todos,

This week I've been trying to be like Alma the Elder.  I'll talk more about that later though.  This week went really well.  WE now have three investigators with a baptismal date, and they all seem to be progressing really well.  everyone here has been working super hard to reach our goal of 100 baptisms in April for this mission.  It's really inspiring to see how many people are getting motivated by this goal and how many doors the Lord has opened to help us with this goal.  Personally, we're looking at the potential to have up to seven or eight baptisms this month, and we have several people lined up for next month.  It's become so easy now to see how the Lord has been preparing people now for years to receive the Gospel, and I've just been super blessed to work with them all.

In other news, we had stake conference this week, which turned out surprisingly well.  Last time, I found it hard to get people to come to conference.  We're couldn't really focus on the sacrament or even explain that the stake center is where our normal meetings were held.  What I did get the chance to do though is I got to share with people how during Stake conference, we would get another chance to listen to leaders of the church, that had been called by prophecy, explain what we needed to do in our personal lives to follow the general council of the Lord. 

Also as a fun side note, we got to eat lunch with President Myers and his wife on Sunday after the conference.  I'd almost forgotten what an American style house looks like until I got to the mission home for the first time in a year.

AS I said though, this week I've been trying to be like Alma the Elder.  That's partially because of our efforts to get 100 baptisms, but because we've also been trying to focus on the teaching of Alma.  We've focused on the importance of sharing what the prophets have taught with us.  It's also been a matter of why we invite people to get baptized.  Even though we've been focusing on inviting people to get baptized a lot during all of my mission, not just this month, we've stopped to focus on why we extend this invitation.  It's like Elder Oaks taught: we don't baptize people to increase our membership, or to get more people to church, we don't baptize people to fill out a statistical report.  We baptize to bring about the salvation of the sons and daughters of God.  No one else can do this work.

That is the balance that all of us, not just missionaries, need to learn.  By offering these ordinances, we are asking people to receive the ordinances of salvation.  By helping everyone receive these ordinances we help them come closer to God and finding real and lasting happiness.  As members of the church, we are the only ones that can do this.  We are the only ones that can share this message with everyone.  If we don't do it, our friends, loved ones, and acquaintances will never receive the good news of the Gospel.

That's all for this week though

Elder Gooden