Miracles in the Driest Place on Earth: Out With The Old, In With The New

August 22, 2016

Hola familia y amigos y todos las personas casándose (stop doing that it’s freaking me out),

mom clarification—for the Spanish challenged I think las personas casandose is something to do with people getting married. Several of his friends have married recently,

Not many emails left. Crazy.

Back to earth. This week we were working with a former investigator who stopped progressing because she had made promises to the Virgin Mary and needed to complete them. I’m not very good with this situation since this doctrine has never made any sense to me, but we tried to talk to her about it.

"Hermana", we began to explain,"We believe in the virgin Mary--she's the mother of the most important person who has ever lived! But, why do you think Jesus is important? Because He is the only one who gave His life for our sins. He paid the price--so on spiritual matters, we are on His terms. And how do you imagine the last judgment? From what the scriptures tell us, we will be standing in front of Him and the Father. We will stare in His eyes and He into ours. No one will be between us."

She thought about it and in the silence I asked, "Hermana, I know you know this is true. When you make the necessary changes in your life, will you be baptized into Christ’s church?"

......."Well, I’ve been avoiding this for too long. Yes, I’ll do it."

"Will you be baptized the 10th of September?"

"Yes". Bakan! (Awesome!) Hope everything works out :P

All the other missionaries ask me how I’m doing with three weeks left. Honestly, I feel normal. Maybe because it hasn’t hit me yet. The only time I really think about going home is when I finally throw my head on the pillow and I think about how much longer I will have to sleep on this uncomfortable mattress haha.

As I’ve talked with my companion this week, I’ve been reminded how awesome the mission is. Don’t get me wrong, there have been MANY times when I just wanted to rip my hair out, lie on the floor and eat a hamburger, but the confirmation of eternal truths that I now have can’t be paralleled by any other experience.

Except maybe marriage...or at least that’s what they keep telling me. uggggggg.

Everything is awesome,

Elder Phillips