RIP

 Dear Family,

Well this is just a sad day. My beautiful car has finally died.... oh well, not too torn up about it. I have better things to focus on here in the mission field. (Editor's note...our 1990 Acura Legend we bought in Richmond VA for 2G hoping it would last us 2 years has finally died after 6 years and 150,000 miles.)

We had a cool lesson with the Torres family, and their friend Daniel. This lesson was taught in "Espanglish." The Torres family are members, and Daniel is the boyfriend of Kimberly, who is 14. Even though she shouldn't be dating!!!!! We got an investigator out of it so it is ok i guess. So we started the restoration like any other lesson right? God is our Loving Heavenly Father, then that leads into The Gospel blesses families. We talked about that for the rest of the lesson!! His family is kind of screwed up. He says that whenever he is at the Torres home, there is something different there. It is a happy feeling. Wow I wonder what that is.... So we identified it as the Holy Ghost. We promised him that if he will try his best to embrace the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that his family will be blessed. We gave him a Book of Mormon, and invited him to pray. He didn't want to, but we got him to do it. He talked to God just like he was talking to us. The Spirit was SOOOOO strong during his prayer!! I almost started crying. It was a reminder to me that our prayers shouldn't be a list of things we are grateful for, then the longer list of what we want, but it is a conversation. It isn't leaving a message on God's answering machine. We will be seeing him next week.

So about Christmas and calling… We can probably do it whenever here. And I don't know how to do a 3-way call so you are on your own there. You people probably forgot how to turn on the computer since I left. Set a time and we can make an appointment. It may be a little tricky because Elder Wright wants to do the same thing with his twin brother who is in Argentina right now. Neat stuff man!!!! But lets set up a time and we can make an appointment.

Cool short story. This one lady in our branch was really sick. She could walk to the door very well to let us in, and couldn't speak very well either. Well we gave her a blessing in the name of Jesus Christ and lo and behold, she walked into Sacrament Meeting 100% better. This stuff is real man.

We have a Zone Conference with Elder Piper or something from the 70 tomorrow. We had to read a talk by Elder Bednar, Seek Learning by Faith. That is the bomb. Go look it up. My Spanish dictionary got a nice workout, but I was able to read it all in Spanish! Cool stuff! But it really is a good talk. We had to come up with 3 things that we learned to apply to our individual work. I can only remember 2 right now but here they are. 1. Have complete faith. Have faith to step into the dark and let the Lord guide me. Take the leap. and 2. Sharing spiritual experiences with my investigators is a good base, but helping them receive their own is the best thing to do. If I do that, they will remember them for the rest of their lives. WAY good talk.

Sadly, I don't get my Christmas package tomorrow. This Zone conference was supposed to happen 2 months ago, but thanks to Hurricane Sandy it is tomorrow. We have a Christmas Zone Conference the 21st. So we will all be together when the world ends!!!! Happy day.

Well it is a great time of year. Love each other, remember what Christmas is really about, and always remember Him. He loves us so much. It is always a bummer when people reject us! If only they knew what they were doing!! We just have to find those prepared. Love you, and see ya next week.

-Elder Mike Dial