Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Semana 13 in Iquitos (April 7th, 2014)

This week in Iquitos was awesome!
So my companion and I are working like crazy to find new families to teach and we've been straight contacting references and teaching every waking moment it seems and honestly----I love it. I feel like I'm working so much harder because there is so much more to do. This week alone we founf 24 new investigators with 7 families. We are also working way hard with less actives. I love my area it is a missionary's dream come true, and we are going HARD.
So Hermana Centeno and I are teaching the family Torres Amias (as pictured in the photo). We LOVE this family. They are so special to us and we are always laughing and having fun with them.They have such great desires to be disciples of Christ and we are helping five of them, the two parents and three of the children to be baptized on the 19th.  They are learning and progressing so well and we are so excited for them. We are preparing that matrimony for the parents, Maykeel and Lucina, and will be holding a ward fundraiser to help with the matrimony. We are excited and praying for them.
We are working way hard with all of our other investigators and we see a lot of potential in these sweet people. We have an investigator named Viviana who we contacted in the street. She is a single mom and was very kind and willing to receive us and actually came to General Conference this week! We were so happy, she is always so kind and smiling.I was watching conference in another room in English but my companion said that she was very attentive the whole time. I didn't get to talk to her after but we talked to one of our other investigators who is her nighbor, and Viviana told her that her heart was touched by the conference.  She told her that she has been to a lot of churches but never has felt the spirit the way she felt it in conference. Our other investigator told all of this last night and I was smiling so hard and so happy. That is the power of prophets and apostles, people. This conference was so amazing to me, I felt so spiritually fed and I have a testimony stronger than ever that they are truly servants, prophets and apostles of God, who speak to us and have the authority to guide us. I am sure of that, and so grateful for that knowledge. The whole time in conference I was feeling the spirit so strong and praying that our investigators in the chapel were feeling the same thing. And my prayers were answered, my companion and I felt true joy in knowing that these people had felt the spirit testify of the truth of the restored gospel.
I know this church is the same church that Jesus Christ established while here on the Earth, and that we have prophets and apostles who lead us and guide us back to his presence.
My FAVORITE talk from conference was that of Elder Bednar that spoke of the atonement and that we can use the atonement of Jesus Christ to bear our burdens. Not just to be cleansed from sin, but to be transformed into the kind of person we want to be, that God wants us to be. My desire is to use the atonement and repentence to become a little better every day.To love more, worry less, think about others needs before mine. It is a constant quest and I am so grateful to be here as a missionary. I am learning and growing in ways I never thought possible, in ways I could never have grown at home, and because of that (and many other reasons as well) the sacrifice is totally completely 170% worth it. I love you all and I'm praying for each and every one of you.
 Love,
Hermana Benyo





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