Leadership and stake conferences

We had changes this past Sunday and lots of stuff happened during the week. Overall it was awesome! One of the first things we had this past week was a conference with a member of the Seventy, Elder Falabella. All I have to say about that was it was amazing. The spirit was so strong and I know he is a man called of God. He had nothing but love and the spirit radiating from him the entire time. Our mission is now focusing on teaching fathers of the family. Our goal is to have between 5 and 7 families progressing at any given time. That's a really tough goal, but we know that a Seventy wouldn't give us a goal if it wasn't possible.


After this conference we had our stake conference this Sunday. Yet another member of the Seventy showed up to the stake conference (how lucky are we right?) and gave some really powerful talks. But this is were everything got super cool for me. Right before we started the conference my mission president came up to me and asked me to translate the talks for a brother who doesn't speak Spanish. I got to spend the two hours translating and sharing conversation with a really amazing man. I feel bad as I never got his name. He's a recent convert of just about a year. He was going to receive the priesthood that day and is the coolest guy you'll ever meet. He's 85 and has lived in Mexico for the past year and a half. A lot of the talks were about genealogy and temples, he told me that he has gone to the temple once and never tried family history, but he said he's going to talk with his sister about starting it up and go to the temple more often. What a blessing it was for me to not only listen to the conference, but get to translate what was being said. Afterwards he gave me a huge hug and asked me to go with him to be set apart as elder. The experience was amazing. I love being a missionary.


Here comes the other awesome thing about the week was that we had changes!! Sadly it's time for Elder Rangel to leave...I'm gonna miss my buddy from Monterrey, but he's going to do awesome in Xalapa. My new comp is named Elder Guzman (I think that's how you spell it... hahaha) he's chilango (from Mexico City) and we are going to have an awesome change. In these 6 weeks I'm going to complete 11 months in the mission. Time flies, no? They closed an area in Tezuitlan that was of another district leader so my district is going to be growing by two! With another set of elders and also hermanas. Expect to see pics of some activities as a district cause we are finally big enough to do stuff! hahaha.


I love you all so much and I love this church. This mission is amazing and I love every second. I don't ever want it to end! I want to end with a quick thought that Elder Falabela gave us. He said as missionaries we have lots of rules. More that him in fact! (he can kiss his wife is what he said is different hahaha) but he asked us to think about why we have so many rules. And he said well it's so that we can be blessed, we know that with more obedience we are more blessed. But then he said being obedient is the way we show our faith. We know that faith without works is dead. He encouraged us to be more obedient in everything so that our faith will grow and with that faith we will find more miracles in our missions.


I love love love a scripture about faith. It's in the Bible in Matthew 21:21. (be ready for rough translation hahaha) basically with our faith we can move mountains. Now I'm pretty sure not really move mountains but we will have more miracles in our lives when he have more faith. And that all comes from our obedience to our Heavenly Father.


Love,


Elder Babcock