July 29, 2014

Hey there everyone!

It's Tuesday here and this is our P-day so I am a day late on emailing all of you. But we get to go to the Temple today and it will be my last time to go to the Temple on my mission. I am stoked to go and I know it will be great. Last week was awesome, we had a meeting with President Ostler last week to talk about the upcoming MLC. It was a great experience because it was the first time we got to have a real nice meeting to talk about MLC and not be rushed like we were last time. We were really guided by the Spirit as we had our meeting and as we talked about the things that we need as a mission. There were things that Elder Limocon and I have been talking about that President Ostler ended up saying he wants to teach in MLC. We never mentioned anything to him but it was just so inspired that we were all thinking about teaching and counseling about the same things. We had some exchanges with some zone leaders in Manila and we changed the way we did it this time. Instead of going to one area and bring one to our area, we decided to help them out by both going to their area and building it up. It was super duper effective. They have been struggling lately with finding and getting many people to church and at the end of the exchange we had 5 new investigators and we got more referrals as well. It was a great day and we were blessed that we were able to help them out just a little big. The Chinese man we are teaching, Matthew, is coming along pretty well. We had a great lesson with him last week and focused all of it just on Jesus Christ. I asked him if he believed in Jesus Christ and in the Atonement, and he said yes! I was so happy and I felt the Spirit so strong when he said that. We have been teaching him a long time about Jesus Christ and it was great to hear him say that he believes in Him. We are still teaching about the gospel and him being baptized and stuff, and he still wants to learn more before that, but I thought ti was a huge step for him to say he believes in Jesus Christ. We also had a great lesson with John, the guy from Alabama. He still struggles with faith and so we read Alma 32 with him and focused on faith but as we read I could see a change in him where he wants to start trying to strengthen his faith. I am so grateful for the Book of Mormon and the Spirit, and how they touch the lives of those who read it. I know the Book of Mormon is true and it blesses the lives of everyone who reads it and prays about it.

Elder Stephens