I
sent one letter to Michael in the MTC, but never heard anything back.
Another letter would not hurt though. I hope he is doing all right.
The package sounds perfect :D Thank you!
I am so excited
for Conference! I hope we can help all of the converts here to go to as
many sessions as possible. I think they will though. Roberto continues
to have good questions and even answers his family when they have
questions. I just can´t get the idea of him being a bishop off of my
mind. He is going to love conference. He already loves reading the
Liahona.
This week I have come to realize even more how different the church
is here than it is in the states. In our branch of 70, only about 10
men hold the priesthood. There just aren´t very many choices for
leadership. Luckily our branch president is really good. But if it
weren´t him, I don´t know who else in the ward it could be without the
branch falling apart. We are so blessed in Utah especially to have so
many great leaders and members. Everybody needs to help out and be apart
of the ward to help the church be the sacred place it needs to be for
people to find God´s path. I found a statistic here the last week. At
the end of April 2012, there were 1,250 members in the branch here in
Tocopilla, but only 64 were active (5.1%). And talking to many of these
inactive people, the biggest and most common reason they don´t go to
church is because they got offended by someone in the branch. Just that!
Imagine how it would be on judgement day and having to tell God that
you didn´t follow His gospel and endure to the end because somebody else
made you upset one day! It is so sad! They just don´t see or understand
the importance of the covenants they made. I know that God is just and
everything will be fair in the last day, and I don´t think that is a
good enough excuse not to follow Him.
Thankfully at home we have such good people that help the ward work
how it should. The leaders have always seemed like the best examples to
me.
Now on the other side, there is an amazing lady that
moved in to our branch. She just got here a month ago, but problems have
happened to make many members be very against her. Someone even asked
that she be excommunicated from the church. For now, the branch president
suspended her from the church so that all those members don´t get
upset. So she can´t have a calling, give the prayer in sacrament
meeting, or even take the sacrament. What has been done to her is not
right and came from rumors and judging. But she is still doing
everything that she is allowed to do. She is visiting less active
members, is always willing to use her house to invite non members, and
set up a service project for the youth. She will not give up on doing
what is right because of rumors of other people. She is amazing and, as
soon as things get straightened out, will be such a strength to the
branch. She is so strong, and all of this while raising 4 little kids.
She is such an example to me of how Christ responded to Pharisees when
they tried to punish him for healing on the Sabbath.
Christ is our perfect example, and I am so grateful for the gift of repentance and that we can progress week by week.
I love the mission. Being a missionary is such a blessing, and I can´t believe how fast it is going.
I hope everything gets settled down for the wedding! That is so crazy that Jessica is getting married! Haha
Love,
Elder Keele
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