Week 2

This week has been awesome. There is never really any down time but I'm fine with working all day as the time flies. For Sept. we have 4ish dates for baptism and October almost 7. I'm loving the work and the Spanish is coming more and more every day. The gift of tongues is real, people.

We had a really cool chance to be a part of the rededication of the Mexico City temple. There were three hour and a half sessions of like mini-conference in Spanish. All the talks were centered on the temple and its importance. Elder Holland and Pres. Eyring were there and both gave 3 amazing talks about temples and their personal importance to them. Elder Holland talked first and his story was about how amazing temples are, when they aren't close or when they are being renovated. His story was about his son when he was getting ready to go on a mission. Their temple in London was being renovated and there was no other close temples. So his wife and son flew to Utah and decided to do his first temple session in the St. George temple. They planned so that his wife and son would start the temple session at 11 am in Utah and at this same time he would be home from work at 6 pm in Europe and would clean up the room and have his own little scripture study with the temple and his family in mind. He talked about how before 6, it felt like a normal day. But as he concluded his opening prayer at 6, the feeling of peace and love came over him as he new the at this time his son was starting his first session in the temple. He said while reading the scriptures he couldn't help but wonder. Was my son okay? Was he lost with what was happening? What if he got worried or made a mistake? And then the same calm feeling of peace came again. He knew that not only was his wife there, but that all the temple workers that day were his personal "angels" "sentinels" "guardians" and so forth that day. He said that one of his best temple experiences was a day he wasn't even in the temple. He said some days the temples are very far from us and we can't always go when we want to... but that we should keep our temple covenants close to us always so that when the temple is far physically, it's right with us always spiritually.

I'm sad I don't get to go to the temple in this mission for two years.. but I know that the peace and love we feel at the temple is here with me in Xalapa as I keep and think of my sacred covenants I've made. I love this gospel and I've seen families become closer here in 2 short weeks by the lessons taught to non member families. President Greer believes missionaries have 5 purposes: find, teach, baptize, reactivate, and get them to the temple. I know that the temple is the best place on this earth we can go to be close to God, but whens it's far away physically, it doesn't have to be spiritually (: now Pres. Eyring gave an awesome talk too. But it was on temple marriage and that's not on the mind until July 2017 :) Anyway I love you all and Xalapa and specifically Coatzintla is awesome (:

Love,

Elder Babcock