March 26, 2013

Bendita Familia mia,

Wow this has just been a fantastic week!! Not only did I have such an awesome wonderful birthday filled with much gratitude for a very loving family, but we have just spent the last 3 days in the presence of an apostle!! Elder Neal L Anderson came and MAN did he have some things to say!! I was very surprised but also felt a renewed surge to carry out this work. Thank you guys sooo much for the great birthday! It really meant so much to me and the ring is beautiful!! Holy cow. It fits or at least on my index finger when it is cold and on my ring finger when it is warm. It is awesome. Also all the cards were great and I can’t wait to hand out all those little bracelets and such to the little kids here. They loved the last ones. So I love you guys so much and Mom I really hope you know that your gift is in process. I did not forget. I really got the idea like the week before and I am going to need some time to get it all nice. Plus a couple women in the ward were trying to help me out with it. But I hope you had an awesome day and that the family took great care of you. I love you! As for me here I was well taken care of. We got to be with all the other missionaries for the apostles’ special training and then the Llanos family who is like one of my favorites made us a wonderful meal and then sang Happy Birthday. I was treated very well. That’s why emails are today. We also had a wonderful family night last night where we watched the movie “On the Lords Errand” in Spanish. It was awesome and the Garrido family really liked it.

As for the week it went awesome! We had some great lessons and some good exchanges and just everything went pretty smoothly. However we did get thrown out of many places because they say we are soliciting. But they can’t throw us out if people ask us to come so they can never really throw us out. We are finding many more prepared people every week and hopefully the new ones we found this week will turn out great. Also I did just get all signed up for my classes. I have classes on Tuesday and Thursday only starting at 730 til about 545 with some small breaks in between--oh and a lunch hour. So things are looking great but I can always change it whenever I need to.

Couple stories real fast. We are setting a baptismal date with the whole Hernandez family this week hopefully so that’s 6 or 7 people progressing towards baptism. pretty cool. They came to stake conference and liked it a lot. We are now working with the nonmembers in the Dominican family we just found and they are reading the Book of Mormon even though she was a Jehovah Witness before. I LOVE DOMINICANS. We are so close with the Garrido family I can smell it! hahaha The dad is now to the point where he no longer agrees with the wife if she has a complaint about the church or a concern. It’s kinda hard because now she is solo--so she feels like she has to be tougher. We are having a DVD of the bible videos put together to help everyone understand the power and reality of the atonement and this week is usually one of the only Sundays where everyone goes to church!! hahahaha so we have high hopes. And quite a few other good lessons. I love this work! Now for what the apostle said. Two things that really surprised me. One, he asked what do we do when we go home teaching and they slam the door on us? We don’t go back.... I was like dumbfounded. He goes on to explain that we don’t compel anyone to come to church. We respect free agency. He said it’s different when they have excuses or they just can’t do it but he told us that sometimes we just focus on statistics too much and that we should focus on the quality. Also he told us that there are many people who do not need a home teacher. He related to us a story about how his home teachers came over faithfully to teach him the message and one time he just told the guy "Paul I am taught by President Packard almost every day I don’t need this! Be with my son! Go to his games participate in his life. etc." He just tried to explain what our real purpose as home teachers is. Then he also said that one of the best parts of the gospel is that not everyone makes it! I was o my dearin pretty badly at that part. He said the blessing of the gospel is knowing we have it and get to be one of the few recipients who will have all that the Father has. It really made me think a lot about how we can go to church and fulfill callings and do all kinds of stuff but if the gospel never gets to our hearts and into our souls we may not make it. I just think about how simple it is but how few people actually get it. I think about how little I really get it! I just feel like I am going to be doing a lot more and pushing a lot harder to secure myself. However it does all come little by little and precept upon precept. There were many other things that happened and were taught but the thing I remember the most is how I felt during it. I remember coming to the realization that he is just a man. But that he has an undying light inside him that has helped him become gigantic spiritually. I knew that if anybody gets it he does and that he knows and most likely if I read his implications right has seen our loving Savior. I love this gospel and I know it is true! I also love you all and can’t wait to get home to see you. You are my biggest blessing. I hope you all are staying swell and dandy.

LOVE,

ELDER OLIVER