This week was pretty interesting. We had to take a 3 hour bus ride down to Leon for zone conference. It was a great meeting! President Pack gave us some great instruction. We discussed the power of the message of the restoration. That's often the first thing we teach people and so we talked about how important it is to understand and have a testimony of the message. We practiced teaching short simplified versions of the message so that we can be prepared to teach at any given moment. So this week me and my companion were able to see several miracles when putting this into practice! We talked to tons of people in the streets this week and were able to share a brief message of the restoration of Christ's church several times. It was a cool learning experience to know that we don't have to have a formal lesson set up in order to teach others that priesthood authority is on the earth. As missionaries, our purpose is to teach others to come into Christ. And how do we do that? By testifying of the Savior and His restored gospel! We felt the presence of the spirit several times out in the sketchy streets of Gijón this week. I love teaching the restoration so much! It's so simple but so powerful. I know that a good amount of people that we spoke with this week felt something as we shared with them the story of Joseph Smith. For me, the spirit is always present when I hear and teach that lesson. We're excited to continue teaching people this wonderful message this week! I'm grateful for my mission president. I know he's inspired. I love the advice and counsel he gives us. I was able to provide a musical number in the conference as well. So that was a cool opportunity! I arranged Come Thou Fount mixed with Be Still My Soul. It went alright!
This week I'm especially grateful for a member here named Pedro. He's 24 and is such a great example to the branch. He has such a strong testimony and a desire to follow Christ. This week, he shared with us his testimony of the power of the Holy Ghost, and he shared a cool analogy that has helped him understand it. He related it with the google maps app. If we need directions from point A to point B, all you do is type in the address on your phone and then it shows you a route to follow. Sometimes however, we get distracted on the road and we accidentally miss the turn. So what does the app do? It reroutes and finds you a new road to take to get back on track. And so imagine you're about to get to the turn that you're supposed to take to get back, but you again get distracted and you miss it. Like maybe the music was too loud and you didn't hear Siri warning you of the upcoming left? Or maybe you were in the middle of a phone call and ignored it? Well, the app should once again find you another route that gets you to the right road to continue towards your destination. Pretty sure we all understand how that works. You mess up, but it's all good because the google maps app is a champ and saves you. But what happens if you continue ignoring the new routes and you continue driving aimlessly? The app stops finding routes. But the location service is always on, even when you're not using google maps. So what does any of this have to do with the way the spirit works? In life, we all have a destination. That destination is eternal life. But as we know, there's a road we have to follow. There's an iron rod we've got to hold on to. But what happens if we miss the turn? Or in other words, what happens if we get off path? Google maps speaks up and finds us a route. That voice that comes up and tells us to take a different road represents the spirit speaking to us. Our Heavenly Father blesses us with that guide so we can get back on track so we can find our point B. But what happens if we don't hear it at first? And we ignore the new route? We continue to lead ourselves off track and we move further away from the road. However, that still small voice will continue speaking to us and giving us a new route. Anyway, after a while, google maps will eventually stops giving us new routes, until we put the address again ourselves. When we recognize that we want to change and get back to the right road, our Heavenly Father will always bless us and help us recognize the promptings of the Holy Ghost so that we can find our way back to right road. But we have to remember our destination and makes plans to get back. The new routes represent the gospel. The gospel is the guide to the road we need to be on. And so what happens if we find ourselves ignoring the "rerouting... take the next left"? We do the simple things we've always been taught. Read the scriptures, attend church meetings, service others, pray frequently... The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the way back to road which takes us to our destination of eternal life. So if you ever drift away, pay attention to the new route that google maps gives you! Trust it! It will take you back! Love your Heavenly Father and trust him. Because He needs you to have faith in him so that He can bless you. After all, we all want to be happy. And what better we to achieve that happiness than by loving him by keeping His commandments? Read Mosiah 2:41. It's good stuff.
Anyway, thanks for all of your support everyone! You're awesome!
Elder Hendrix
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