Squad... I´m gonna be honest, I´m a little frustrated, that´s why the title of this email is, en serio, which means seriously? Here is the thing we were gonna have a baptism this Saturday! This guy is a stud, he has some serious desires to follow Christ, and to change his life. So this is what happened we had a meeting with our ward mission leader, to discuss our investigators, and to see what he could do to help us. Well one of the counselors to the Bishop was there doing some stuff, he´s also the uncle to the investigator that is going to be baptized. Well we started to talk about Gustavo, his nephew, the guy that´s gonna be baptized, and well the uncle, the counselor to the Bishop, Well he said we can’t baptize him until he talks to his nephew to see if he’s ready, because he had kind of a wild life. So we were like whatever, everything is gonna be fine, even though we are kinda called to do this work, and we can determine if he’s ready. Anyway we found out later, that he didn’t just talk to him he told him straight up that he can´t be baptized yet because he isn’t ready. He can’t really do that. So this is the only cool part of this story, we had interviews with our Mission President, and well we talked about this. He told us to tell him, that our mission president, who has the keys to baptism and the confirmation, trusts in us, to make this decision. So I felt pretty cool when I heard that. But the damage was already done, and he’s gonna respect the opinion of his uncle and wait to be baptized. So that was a little sad, but what are you gonna do, just gotta keep your chin up and keep pressing forward.
Now maybe I can share something positive that happened. Well the day we had interviews, the president’s wife gave a sick little lesson about the Holy Ghost. So I´m gonna share a little bit about that, if you don’t mind. Have you ever wondered why during the confirmation, we say receive the Holy Ghost, and not receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, well honestly I never did, but the answer is interesting. We must allow the Holy Ghost to enter into our lives, we can’t force the gift of the Holy Ghost upon someone, they must make the effort to allow the Holy Ghost to dwell in them. In a talk by James E. Faust, he said ¨True Saints are the temple of the Holy Ghost¨ The Holy Ghost can’t dwell in unclean places, so we can´t be unclean, obviously, so we need to strive every day to be worthy of the presence of the Holy Ghost. Also in this talk he talked about how when cooking frogs, the frogs died in the boiling water, but didn’t suffer. How is this possible. Well he said that they raised the temperature very gradually, until it was too late for the frogs, and he related this to sin, that sometimes we justify sin, because it´s only a little worse than what I’ve already done, and eventually it can lead to bad bad things, so don’t let this happen.There´s a scripture in 3 Nephi 14:13-14 which says:
13 Enter ye in at the strait gate; for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, which leadeth to destruction, and many there be who go in thereat;
14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
Don’t enter into the wide gate, with that’s all broad and what not, even though it might be easier enter the straight and narrow, it may be a little more difficult but we will be blessed if we do so.
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Elder Keaton Jorgensen
Argentina Mendoza Mission
We didn’t really have anything cool to take pictures of, but I got this sick Messi jersey, for like not even 10 american dollars.