Becoming Truly Converted

This week has been a hard, awesome week. This last half of my time here my Spanish has felt like it has Plateaued(sp?) big time, so we´ve started hanging out with these Latino´s across the hall, we played some basketball and four-square today. Probably futbol tomorrow. We also started sharing testimony meetings with them after devotionals. 

We had a ton of awesome devotionals this week, specifically from Elder Bednar and Elder Holland. In Elder Bednar talked about the difference of obtaining a testimony vs being converted. And basically he said that a testimony is receiving a truth though faith and the Holy Ghost but conversion is continuing to act on this faith. Nobody is ever done being converted. He also talked a lot on the character of Christ, the humility he had and how much he turned outwards in service even in his weakest moments. 

And really this is my purpose as a missionary, to live as close to Christ as possible and the best way for me to do that is to always look outside myself and find ways to help others. He had two great quotes, ¨The most important investigator is yourself, but if that is all are focused on then you will never find success.¨ Also ¨If you go looking for yourself you won´t find anything, but the moment you forget about yourself and turn yourself over in service of the Lord is when you will discover yourself¨. He also emphasized on how the lessons and principles alone won´t be what convert people but how much they feel the love of God during the discussion is. 

Hollands talk was similar but focused on the importance of personal study. When we completely understand the gospel ourselves, we are more likely to teach an individual rather than a lesson. I loved this, and started to try to teach investigators based off what they need to hear most through questions and stuff. We felt the spirit much more in our lessons and had confidence that our discussion legitamely helped who we were teaching. Anyways I highly recommend listening to both of these talks cause they´re just great. 

I can´t wait for it [fall in Utah], especially since I´ve never seen Utah then and it is just constantly raining here. I´m ready to enter the field and start teaching. I´m going to miss Mexico but I am super ready to head out.

Te amo mucho,

Elder Bessey