Well this week was certainly great (never enough time to write) like we have found some honestly really good people that have started to progress very nicely. I would really like to tell the stories of a couple very powerful lessons that we had this week. Down here in mexico there is an incredible amount of loyalty to the catholic church, people are catholic because their parents were catholic, not because of any personal testimony. One of the things that I have started doing in lessons is that when someone mentions being in a set religion I always mention that the Jews crucified Jesus because of loyalty to the religion of their fathers, and that if we reject the gospel for the religions of our fathers then we are the same as they are. As I thought about that some more, I realized that if we do the same, if we are Mormon because our parents were Mormons or we forget why we are Mormon, we fall into the same tap as the farisees. We always need to have our own personal conviction of every single aspect of the gospel. With that said, as I look inwards, I have really been trying to find more testimony about the resurrection, it has always been a place where I have felt my testimony is week, its just hard for me to think about life after death at my age. Another powerful lesson was with a man who said that he did not want to do anything except listen to us. His wife was baptized, but he did not want to because he just didn't feel like it. And we talked to him about the importance of baptism for like 20 minutes when he stopped us, and said look you have just talked to me for 20 minutes and tried to convince me to do this, when I just wanted to learn from you two. In that moment I realized the difference between a missionary and a seminary teacher. A seminary teacher teaches factual information about the bible to encourage the growth of testimonies, while a missionary invites people to take actions that will bring about the work of salvation. I opened my bible to Paul´s sermon on Mars hill, and began to explain Elder Cook´s talk from conference. Paul established no church among the athenians, nor wrote them an epistle because they only wanted the factual information. When we forget the works of the Gospel, the actions of helping people and become some obsessed with knowledge that it is all that matters, we lose the heart of the gospel. With that and several other scriptures I gave my first chastisement of a person on a mission. As much as I may seem to be very argumentative, I actually really hate correcting others, but this man really needed it, and afterwards, he promised to read the book of Mormon by tonight and will get baptized if he feels it is true! So updates this week. The final was a testimony from some members to a single mother about the blessings of the gospel in the family. Wow, the gospel and the fact that we can have our families forever is powerful. I can think of no greater blessing, and I love the gospel for that.
I LOVE you all lots, gotta go
Elder Standridge
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