Helaman's Mighty Men . . .: Life Long Preparation

Yikes! I hate how fast time goes by. So family, things are doing fabulous here in Aldea. I’m happy, safe, working hard and getting along great with my companion. Pretty much three cool things happened this week I’ll tell you about.

First is that we went to the San Salvador Temple. As always it’s the best thing in the world. I always enter the session really stressed and my mind just going nuts. But then slowly but surely, as things progress, I calm down and by the time I get to the Celestial Room, I just feel so at peace and know that God is happy with the work I am doing here in Santa Ana. It’s hard with so many people saying you have to improve and have to change this or that, so when you can feel the happiness knowing that the most important person is satisfied with what you are doing, it’s the most relaxing feeling ever.

Second thing is the miracle that happened when we were teaching the kid in our area that has a date for two weeks from now. He likes to play on his phone a lot and doesn’t always put a lot of attention in what we teach. He understands he needs to be baptized and wants to do it, but just sometimes doesn’t have the desire from the heart to go out and do things. So we decided to watch the movie of Joseph Smith, but the longer version. His house is like on top of a mountain and so at night it was perfectly silent. We invited the spirit before watching the movie and I told him I was gonna take his phone. He didn’t want to but I just did it so he could pay attention. Well it worked. When we finished watching the video, the three of us just sat there for a while and enjoyed the immense spirit that was in the house. It was beautiful. Bryan even told me afterward, ‘Thanks for helping me pay attention, I really needed that.’ It was sweet to help him have a truly spiritual experience and recognize the importance of staying spiritually in tune to what we need to hear.

Third, I was reading in Alma 16 verse 16 where it talks about how the spirit prepares the minds of the people we are going to teach and how they will be ready to receive our message when we find them. I thought a lot about it and was thinking a lot about why there aren’t people that actually want to know about their life after death. And what they need to do in this life. Pretty much because I had been studying the Plan of Salvation. So I had been thinking about that and then this week we had the perfect lesson with a lady that went to church last week. She has literally had a life long preparation to be able to hear the message of the Gospel at this point in her life. She at one point in time had no house or anything, had an immense debt and had to go to live with her mom because she didn’t even have a bed for her three kids. Slowly but surely she has been getting better but has felt that she’s been missing something in her life. Well that’s when we come in. The night before she had been talking to her daughter about life and the daughter asks her, ‘Mom, will I live with you after I die? What’s it going to be like?’ The girl is 9 so this made Tania, the mom, think a lot about life. The next day we get there and she’s like, ‘My daughter asked me something yesterday, and I didn’t know what to say, maybe you guys have the answer?’ My comp says...’Well Tania, as a matter of fact, we do!!’ I know the spirit prepared Tania and her daughter to be able to receive our message and even though she needs to get married first, I know she will be baptized!

That’s it for the week. We did another fast with Jose and Mary and they are doing great. Comp is still baggy but we are working hard! Life’s good, folks. Ain’t no doubt about it! Love ya~

Elder Crump