January 30th 2017

Week of changes and miracles

So as the subject line says it has been a week of lots of changes in the mission world and I have been able to witness many miracles as well! To start with the changes.

On Wednesday we had a broadcast from Salt Lake. They went through different training stuff and it was really awesome! Elder Bendar talked a lot about how in the Gospel we cannot separate different parts everything is "one in Christ" repentance is part of baptism and that is part of Enduring to the end. It is all different parts of the same puzzle and cannot be taken away from it. I liked that a lot so I wanted to share.

Now the changes we used to track how many lessons we teach in a week and that would be totaled and reported to the missionary department, we tracked 9 different Key indicators, we no longer do that. We only have 4! There is also a new missionary schedule, we still need to be awake by 6:30 and all that fun stuff but there is no longer the rigid schedule where everything has time blocked out. It is now we have from 6:30 to 10 to get everything done. It might sound like a really small change however it is so much easier to be flexible during the day and still be obedient to the rules I agreed to follow on the mission!

Now the Miracles! 

Tuesday we got a call from a family that wants to meet with us and join the Church, we ran into the wife at Walmart almost 5 months ago and gave her our number and she called us this week and we were able to meet with them. They are a super awesome family!

We also had a bit of a different experience as well we go and give blessings at the Hospitals here in Pueblo quite often a few every month. We got a call from our Bishop Saturday night, there was a man who was in ICU and he really wanted a blessing before he passed away. He requested to be "unplugged." We rushed over and met with the family and they took us back. We spoke with the man before we gave him a blessing. He was in a lot of pain and without the aid of the medications and machines he would have passed away about 3 days ago. They asked me to voice the blessing and the miracle I want to talk about is the power and peace that is available because of the Priesthood of God. The Priesthood is our Heavenly Fathers power on earth given to mankind to act in His name, it must be used righteously or it cannot be used. He passed away that night but I know because Elder Garton and I went that man’s family was able to have peace. They know that they will see their father and Grandfather again. I was sobbing by the time we left, watching a family lose a loved one is almost as harder than losing one yourself but I now have a stronger witness that God has laid a plan for his children to be happy and have peace and ultimately to return to him and live as a family. It is a miracle that I am so grateful to be a witness to.

I love you all and I pray for you all often. Know that you are loved!

Elder Stewart