So family it's been a crazy day. It is P-day but it also is the week before transfers and so we have to help arrange who will stay and who go. Oh and I also got to play some golf today so that always takes the biggest chunch out of your afternoon and we helped load up a U-haul truck for our investigator Delores who is moving to Detroit and that makes me really mad.
So Delores has been the investigator that we have made the most progress with this past transfer. She has progressed to a baptismal date and had that moved because she still was living with her boyfriend and so we moved to to August 25th and she is now one the spur of the moment going to Detroit and that is a real bummer because we've taught her everything and she is excited for her baptism but it will have to wait for some lucky A missionaries in Detroit to have her fall right into her hands all prepared and ready for the font so that's a "Shot though the Heart" for sure.
I did get some good letters in the mail this past week from some friends on their mission and a record setting 2 chick mail letters for a cherry on top.
We had Zone Leader Council on Tuesday which was the most spiritual meeting that I've ever been in. Our baptismal goal is for 400 this year and we are only at 202 as of the moment so we really are just going to buckle down and keep the faith that we will be able to get all the baptismal dates that we can get so that we can see some more baptisms in this area and in the zone and in the mission.
So after each ZLC there is a new Zone Training Meeting or ZTM and that's where the whole Zone gets together and had basically a super District Meeting and the trainings are done by the Zone Leaders and they are the trainings that where given at the ZLC. We have had 2 since I've been here and so ZLC happens on the first tuesday of each month and then 2 days later the Zone Training meeting will occur and that takes over district meeting for the week. Our meeting was great and we had a trainging on the Holy Ghost in conversion and then had a training on the Atonement and how that needs to be the focus of our missionary efforts. If an investigator is spiritually converted to the Atonemant and feels the power that it has then they will never leave the church ever. Our Purpose is to invite others to come unto Christ through Faith in Jesus Christ and his Atonement.... If that doesn't take place then they truly aren't converted to the main message that we are trying to get across. The Book of Mormon is the greatest resource for the What, Why, and How the Atonement works. I have been focusing my studies this past week on all the chapters in the Book of Mormon which talk and testify about Christ and his mission as the Savior. The best place i was able to find this was in Preach my Gospe Chapter 3 at the Beginning of Lesson 2 of the Plan of Salvation. I know that Jesus is the Christ and that testimony keeps getting stronger every morning when I prepare and build my testimony of the Savior in my personal study and then later on in the day I do my best to share the testimony with those that I come in contact with.
On Saturday I got to be on a specialized training with President Jergensen, he was in town and was going to be interviewing Dedra for her baptism and because she has done some time behind bars President has had to do it well in advance. It went very well and I know that she is truly put she past behind her and is striving for a deeper testimony of Christ. Being with President was get he is definantly someone that I want to be like when I grow up.
So I do have some comments for the family..... Does the Gonzalez family have a family mission plan?...... If not I know that Tony will be an expert at helping develop one and getting the Gonzalez family to be a missionary oriented family.
It is sad to think that I'm down to my last few days as a teenager......................... I really do feel like I'm leaving something behind. All of my greatest memories have happened in the past few years and now I have to grow up and be a man. The apostle Paul wrote.... When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. This is how I feel in a very real sense I know that I can't do and act the way that I once was. I have learned what it means to give up everything and to put D&C 4 to the test and to apply the " eye single to the glory of God" in my everyday life. Although this area isn't seeing the success that it needs I feel something inside of me starting to swell I cry often in my scriptures and in my pondering when I think about the great blessings that I have an how that can effect all those around be but they won't listen because they are spiritully blind at the moment.
I have been reading through a talk this past week called the 4th missionary.... if you haven't read it READ it and this a passage from that talk. Paraphrasing C.S. Lewis the Lord says to us: "Give me all. I don't want so much of your time, so much of your talents and money, and so much of your work: I want You. All of you. I have not come to torment orfrustrate the natural man. but to kill it. No half-measures will do. I don't want to only prune a branch here andanother there; rather, I want the whole tree out. Hand it all over to me, the whole outfit, all of your desires, all of your wants and wishes and dreams. Turn them all over to me, give yourself to me and I will make of you a newself in my image. Give me yourself and in exchange I will give you Myself. My will, shall become your will. Myheart, shall become your heart." I know that this is so true and I'm trying my hardest each and everyday to put away all the desires of my heart, which might not nesessarly be bad but are keeping me from having my focus on 400 and from having the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost.
When I return Home, which is a long time from now, I want to be different. I want to act different. I want others to see in me the Savior. I desire the change that Alma 5:14 talks about. I want Christ in my image and to have a lasting change of heart. Over a year left and I feel that it's not enough time.
I love you all I a pray for you morning and night
Elder Gonzalez Peoria Illinois
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