4/6/2010

4/6/10
Hey Everyone!

So like always another week gone by with looks of great experiences and opportunities to grow.

On Friday we had the baptism for Veronica Apodaca and it was excellent! It was her birthday and we made the baptism real special. I was able to baptize her and I will send pictures of it. She was super ready and happy to be there. She has such a strong testimony and is going to be such a strong member of the church. Her husband Evan was there and he was going to get baptized but last week he backed out when he got into a fight and was not too excited about it all anymore. But yesterday we had a POWERFUL lesson with him and we felt the spirit SO strong! He felt it too and wants to get baptized! :) It was such a spiritual experience and I love how powerful the truth is. We re-taught Lesson 1 with his wife testifying as a member and we testified a lot. I think he will be baptized the24^th of April but he is going to pray first.

Conference was great and as always there were a lot of uplifting messages! I had to watch the Sunday part in Spanish which I am not too big of a fan of. Maybe it’s because I’m used to it in English, but it was a lot different. I think that is why people here don’t care too much about or go to conference. But I felt the spirit and learned a ton in the end. I especially liked Elder Uchtdorf’s talk about patience and how impatience comes from selfishness and the idea that the world revolves around us. I am not too patient sometimes and this talked really helped me to change more :) I also came to conference with a lot of questions and EVERY single one them were answered! How cool is that! Oh and I forgot about Easter... no one does anything here for that so I didn’t even remember till Sunday morning when the other American elders told me about it... ha-ha. But it was a good day!

Diego Qintana who is 18 years old is going to get baptized this Saturday! :) He has stopped smoking a pack a day of cigarettes, drinking, and drinking coffee daily! He has gone so far and will not let anything keep him from getting baptized. I LOVE teaching people my age because we become such good friends and we understand each other so much more. He lives with his grandma who is not all too concerned about him because his step mom does not want anything to do with him and kicked him out of the house, and his mom abandoned him. Yeah, you can see how much this baptism means to me. He has never felt so much love in his life and loves the gospel. He has truly felt its healing power in his life and I feel privilege to be able to help. Also in his prayers he thanks good for helping him find his friends! I KNOW he was a friend I promised to share the gospel with in the pre-existence and that I am here for that reason! HoH How great and wonderful is the plan of God! Saturday will be a very special day :)

My comp and I get along great most of the time. He is super direct and is a lot different than me, but we get along great. We are like brothers and have a lot of confidence in each other. :)

I love being here in the mission and have never been happier in my life! I love the Lord and thank him daily for the opportunity I have to be a part of this great work.

I love you all so much and really thank you for all of your support!

Love

Elder Andrew Davidson