What Compliments Have to Do With the Atonement of Christ

This week was full of spiritual experiences and there are so many people now that are progressing towards baptism. I am so happy for them!

We have begun to teach the family Lopez. The parents are inactive members of the church and their sons, Victor (17), and Raul (15), are not members of the church. The moment we invited them to be baptized, they both said yes! They are slightly mentally handycapped, but they understand very well what we are teaching them. It is amazing to see their progress and excitement. We taught them how to pray yesterday and Victor repeated the words that I said so that he could learn because he can´t read. He wouldn´t settle for that though, and right after the prayer, he said "now I am going to try." He prayed for other people who were suffering, that God would help them. I felt the spirit very strongly when he prayed.

We had lunch with they zone leaders. Giso. Mmmm!

We are still teaching Yanel (corrected from the last letter: Janil). She is amazing! We invited her to start reading the Book of Mormon from the begining, but not only did she read the first four chapters and relate back to us perfectly what happened, she also read the first three pamphlets and understood them very well. She is excited to be baptized and is teaching herself to be prepared because we can´t teach her fast enough. We are praying that she can come to church and also that she and her boy friend can accept to get married so that she can get baptized. It is amazing to teach people who have strong desires like her.

The difference between shined shoes and walking work shoes. For my time in the mission, my shoes are still in good condition. I hope I don´t have to buy a pair here.

My companion was sick for several days this week, so I got to go on divisions with our awesome zone leaders who helped us teach these investigators. It was interesting to see how they taught differently, and yet how their different methods also helped the people we taught. I learned that we are each who we are for a reason and we shouldn´t try to be someone that we aren´t or try to be someone else who we admire, because God can use us as who we are to help others. That doesn´t mean that we shouldn´t change and become better, but we should hold on to the good charactaristics that we have to build God´s kingdom. I´m looking for the traits that make up me and trying to teach in that way rather than the way of all of my companions.

Elder Caceres´ street!

I also learned what a difference it makes to tell someone that they are awesome. Compliments empower to do more good and invite happy feelings that help us to work hard and work together. I invite each of you to find good things to say about other people with the intention to make them happy. Don´t be discouraged if it doesn´t look like it makes a difference at first. Positivity makes problems easier. It´s just like the gospel. Though following Christ and being a good person doesn´t get rid of our problems, it does make them easier and help us to be happy. I love Jesus and the hope he provides for all of us. As we follow Him with out fear of what others will say or think, we have peace in our lives.

Thanks for everything. You all are amazing!

Elder Cloward