Reminiscing Parral

 Hey everybody hope its been a great week!

I got a new companion. His name is Elder Green and he's from eastern Kentucky.

We have had some great lessons with the members this week. This 18 year old young lady is preparing for her mission in Brazil and so we taught and grilled her about the Plan of Salvation. Anyways so the parents told us they have lived in their same house for the past 17 years, and not once have they tried to share the gospel with their neighbors. They told us that they have felt inspired to start being bold and direct about inviting their neighbors. So we were excited to see how that goes for them! They told is that their approach is to ask "How has Covid been for you and your family? What has brought you peace and joy during this time?" And then share that, "For us it's been through having a living prophet of God who guides us" Then just simply asking "Would you be interested in hearing a message of hope and peace?"

I thought that this was an excellent way to tie the modern day circumstances of the pandemic, to an invitation to learn more about our church and the joys of the gospel. Afterwards, I asked myself, "Why doesn't every member make efforts to ask these kinds of questions to their neighbors? So you already know that, that is one of the challenges for this week

We had some other great lessons and invited families to read in Luke 22:42-44, which is the suffering that Jesus Christ Experienced in Gethsemane, before they partake of the sacrament each week. Doing so will allow you to put yourself in the right mindset leading up to partaking of the sacrament, and I can promise that your church experience will become more meaningful.

This week, I called a non member named James Garcia and started talking to him. He started asking me where I was originally called and so I told him in Mexico. He asked me which part since he had grown up in Mexico, and so I told him Chihuahua. Then, the very next question that he asked me was if I knew where Parral was?! So I told him uhhh yea I know where Parral was...as that was the only place I ever served when I was in Mexico. So then he went on and told me that he knows Parral very well, and I even told him exactly where I was living, and he knew! So we had a great time talking and he actually is just recovering from surgery, but in a few weeks we are planning on going to visit him and get to know him better. So that was honestly just a miracle and I am excited to see what comes out of it!

As you all may be aware, there are 6 YA devotionals coming up in the next month or so from the general authorities. So I hope you all get the chance to watch some of those. Another invitation that we have been making to the members is to start thinking of people that would be receptive to come to your house, and watch part of this upcoming April 2021 General Conference Session. As you start thinking of people now, you will be prepared to extend an invitation to those that are willing to listen to some amazing and uplifting spiritual messages.

Our main focus this entire time has been finding, that is the real trick these days. We have been calling and setting up our own member lessons with everyone in the ward councils and have found that to be significantly more helpful, in contrast to just having our ward mission leaders set up lessons with other members. We have obtained information regarding how we can best help in the efforts to find, help, and teach the part member families, unbaptized kids, and the less active families. We have been working with the members and encouraging them to get back into contact with these people. So at the moment, we have so many potential people right now that we are trying to transition to actually start teaching.

We had a lesson with the Ma family. Tony Ma is a recent convert and his wife is Budhist. He has 2 kids Albert Ma(11) and Anthony Ma(5). We have been working with Tony to prepare to bless the sacrament. As well as, preparing him to baptize his son Albert on March 20! We are excited and will make sure Albert will be ready to make his first covenant with God as he prepares himself for his baptism. Thats it for me today. Anyways, there was 3 invitations for you all this week, I hope that you choose to accept at least one of them haha. Have a fantastic week!

Elder Talbot