Wednesday, March 16, 2011

The Spirit Testifies!!

Hola Familia!!
 Ok, I'll start off with Last Wednesday night.  After I had gotten off the computer last week we went to the house of the Antola Family.  They're a family from Peru and they also have a son on a mission right now in Chicago.  He left about the same time that I got my mission call.  Their Daughter, Maite, who's in high school invited one of her friends over to meet us.  On Tuesday we talked to Maite a little about what her friend might need out of this lesson and Maite thought that something about being self conscious would be good.  Wednesday morning we did our personal study with her friend in mind.  We had kinda decided a little bit on the lesson we were going to use the night before so I kinda knew more or less the stuff we were looking for.  The lesson we planned was going to be on being steadfast and immovable.  We were going to use a Mormon Messages video that I had watched like 5 Times in the MTC.  The Lesson seemed great.  So anyways, we got to the Antola's house and met Amanda, Maites friend, and just kinda talked with her for a little while.  We also spent some time talking with Brother and Sister Antola as well and just broke the ice with Amanda.  Before we got into the lesson I went on their computer and looked for the video we were going to share with Amanda about halfway through the lesson and guess what!  I couldn’t find it at all!  That definitely wasn't that greatest bit of news for our lesson plan, but oh well.  So we started the lesson and it was going great.  The spirit was there and Amanda really liked what we were sharing with her.  I mean, it was just flowing.  At about the end of the lesson we could tell that this was really getting into Amanda's heart.  But the best part I would say was when we were bearing our testimonies to Amanda.  Elder Lopez and I each bore our testimonies and then Maite bore hers.  That was the best part.  It was such a heartfelt expression of love and I could see that it really touched Amanda.  We asked her to come to church on Sunday, but unfortunately Amanda wasn't able to make it because it was her sister’s birthday and her parents wanted her there for that.
We had also brought along the game “PIT” to play with Amanda and the Antola family.  (There's a reason for this.)  Brother and Sister Antola are the kind of husband and wife that like to playfully bicker a lot, so we thought that PIT would be the perfect game for them.  And it was!  It was so funny watching them fight over the cards and having everyone yelling "FOUR, FOUR, FOUR!" "THREE,THREE,THREE!"  It was just such a great night.

This last Thursday we also had a Zone meeting were we went over the stuff we had learned from when Elder Bednar had come and spoken to us.  I recently have been having the spirit tell me more and more that my prayers need to be more personal.  I've found that growing up, I've really taken praying for granted.  I want to refer you to reading Enos and think about your own personal prayers and how you can learn from Enos.  This is one of the scriptures that I've been reading recently and has really affected me.  I've always known that prayer was the way we have of communicating with our Heavenly Father and really truly receiving our own personal revelations.  Although it's not easy to change, I'm still not nearly where I want to be and I can promise you that by really putting forth an effort to communicate with God, you will see more blessings in your life.  Also, you should read a talk that Elder Bednar gave in conference not long ago, called "Ask in Faith” It’s a great talk about how we should be praying and the kinds of things we should be praying for.

Anyways, once again I've gotta be going.  But I look forward to hearing from you next week.
Love, Elder Dilling

P.S.  You can give that talk to the missionaries in the ward and tell them to use it in their member lessons.  It's a great missionary tool as well.  Who knows, maybe It'll help with the work there.  Also, who’s this new convert?  Make sure that you do all you can to keep her active.  That really is the responsibility of the Members.