Week #82

Hola Familia!

Thank you so much for you letter and love. It´s interesting to feel the love and prayers and family and friends even though we´re many miles apart. I had a great week with some great experiences. These experiences strengthened me and I hope that they can strengthen you. I know that God directs this work through His Son Jesus Christ. I wish that the whole world knew who the Savior was because I´m starting to really get to know and love Him.

First off, I had an incredible experience with the world-wide conference that we heard. It was the first time in over a decade where they have had a conference with all of the missionaries around the world. We heard talks from Elder Andersen, Elder Bednar, Elder Oaks, President Clayton, and other leaders in the Church. I was truly uplifted and there were many things that I realized that I needed to do better to be able to help people come unto Jesus Christ. Something that Elder Oaks said really penetrated my heart. He said that just being clean in the presence of God isn´t enough. We must become STRONG and be able to fight against sin and have the strength to be able to be in the presence of our Father in Heaven. Pondering in the statement that he said, I realized that I need to use the Atonement more in my life. Not just to repent and become clean from sin, but to truly become STRONGER. The Atonement is infinite and it must make us strong and powerful to resist all type of sin and temptation. We must be so strong that the very thought of sin makes us disgusted. One of my goals is to use the Atonement even more in my life daily.

Another great experience was a letter that I received from Ruben Cardenau- a convert from Necochea. He got baptized December 27, 2015. In his letter, he told me how happy he was to be in "the true faith of our Savior Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father." He shared with me his experiences from doing baptisms for the dead for many of his ancestors. He´s gone to the Buenos Aires temple 2 times and the Cordoba temple 3 times. He told me that he received the Melquesic (spel? I can only think of the spelling in Spanish haha) Priesthood and became an Elder. He told me about his excitement and his preparation to enter in the temple to receive his endowments. It made me think about when I received my endowments. There hasn´t been a happier day in my entire life. I was filled with so much joy and satisfaction. Not because I did a lot to help Ruben, but because the Lord let me see a man change and accept the gospel of Jesus Christ and start to feel the happiness that I feel.Missionary work is satisfying, but until you feel it, you can´t explain it. It was a great tender mercy from the Lord to hear from Ruben.

I hope that everyone preparing to serve the mission knows that there is great joy in store waiting for you. This same joy will come to all of us as we magnify our callings and live worthily. I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Love Elder Bosco II