May 19, 2014 -- 7 Months Left!!!

Hey Family!

Well it was a really good week this past week! We have had some pretty crappy weather here. It has been raining all week and the streets were all flooded! I walked around in soaking wet shoes all week and in some spots the water came up to my knees! But we still had a pretty good week of work here. And the best part was that Ruth and her son Juan were baptized on Saturday! It was such a cool experience for them! I t was a great service, but it was really fast! That night was the first session of stake conference for us so we had to really hurry with the service! I had the chance to baptize the mom Ruth. Haha with all respect to the her and the family she is not the smallest lady haha and it didn't help that the water in the font had be slowly draining during the service so when we got in to the water it was about mid thigh, high knee on me! So after 3 times she finally came out clean! It was awesome, and the same thing happened to Juan and my comp, he had to do it 3 times as well. But in all the best part was to see how happy everyone was, and I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to be apart of it. 

Yesterday we had stake conference. It was really good! We had a area Seventy there and he spoke, also our Mission President and his family were there. It went really well. The best part was haha is that all of them talked about the Work of Salvation and missionary work. I think that it really helped the members to understand what there role is in the work of the Lord. All of the talks were really good. We had our investigators there and it was really good to have them hear from our mission President and the Area Seventy. After the conference we had a chance to see all the Elders and Sisters from the zones. Some of my old comps were there and some of my other friends from the mission! But the best part was that the other daughter of Ruth that did not get baptized after the conference came up to us and said that she does want to take the step and be baptized!! So we are planning a service for her not for this week but for the next Saturday! 

I have been doing a lot of studying in the past week, I have been reading in a talk that I found in my things called "the fourth missionary" 

I remember reading the talk when I had just started my mission in the Salt Lake mission. It is a great talk and I would definitely recommend it to any and all future missionaries or missionaries that are in the field. I learned that we as missionaries will gain little to nothing from our missions if we do not put our hearts in to it. Like anything else, if we do not give it our all we will not see the end results. I read in 1 Corinthians chapter 13. This chapter helped me a lot. It helped me understand that if I do not have the gift of Charity for these people than I am nothing. I think that all of us can apply this into our lives, to really dedicate our lives around the Gospel and helping others see the blessings that it brings to all of us. I know that this is true. 

I am so thankful for all of you in my life and miss you all so much!!

Elder Liljenquist