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| Elder Ayala and Elder Parrish |
I hope all is going great at home. This has been a great week for me here in Granada. On Wednesday, I received my new companion, Elder Ayala. He is great! He's from El Salvador. We both came to Nicaragua the same day, March 5th, 2012. I always thought that he and I would be companions someday and I was right! I can already tell that he will be one of my favorite companions. I had always wanted to be his companion, because he seems really cool. I imagine we'll be together at least 2-3 transfers. We have very similar personalities and work ethic. We are going to keep helping Zone Granada to have success! We have seen miracles this week and the Lord has blessed us with a lot more families to teach that are really positive. We are developing our faith that we will be able to find the people that God has prepared here in our area.
We have found an AWESOME investigator that has been prepared by our Heavenly Father and it is incredible. His name is Hildebrando. We contacted him and his wife, Claudia, a couple weeks ago and left them a pamphlet about the restoration of the gospel. We weren't able to find them for a couple weeks, but finally were able to talk with him last weekend. When we got to his house, he pulled out Wikipedia articles about Joseph Smith, The Angel Moroni, The Book of Mormon, and the Urim and Thummim. It turns out that after reading the pamphlet in his spare time at work, he was so interested that he started searching for tons of more stuff to learn about the church. We explained to him that the official church webesite would have all the correct information about the church and our beliefs, but the good part is that he is hungry to learn! He started telling us about the importance of the restoration of the gospel through Joseph Smith, and how he was called of God to restore the true church and translate the Book of Mormon. He explained to us that the Urim and Thummim was a tool used by ancient prophets to receive revelation and that it was what the Lord prepared for Joseph Smith to translate the Book of Mormon. Needless to say, our jaws basically hit the floor. Elder Franco and I looked at each other like, "Where did this guy come from?!" We taught about the restoration of the gospel through the prophet Joseph Smith, and he understood every word of it. The spirit was so strong, and he told us that he believed all of it. I could not believe how much preparation he had done and how smart he is. We gave him a Book of Mormon and invited him to read and pray about it. Then, yesterday he came to church with us and participated in all of the classes. (I swear it's like he's already been a member for 20 years). Last night, we stopped by his house to talk with him, and he told us that he loved church. He said that after church he just wanted to keep learning more, so he got on lds.org and watched a bunch of videos and read talks from the 12 of apostles and prophets. He read about what general conference was and says he can't wait until April so he can watch it! We sat down with him and he told us that he had felt like he'd received an answer that the church and the Book of Mormon are true. We invited him to be baptized on the 30th of March and he said, "Well of course I will!" I can already see him in baptismal clothes. His wife, Claudia, isn't quite as positive...even though she is willing to listen to our message. She has a lot of family that are members of another church. But hopefully with the influence of the spirit in her home and the example of her husband, she will also accept the restored gospel.
These past couple weeks have been a testimony to me that the field really is white, already to harvest. The promises that the Lord makes to his servants will all be fulfilled as they are faithful to him.
Love you guys! Have a fantastic week :) Elder Parrish
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| Some of the MTC Crew |
