All of you know that the Lord respects His children´s prayers and fasts, that He answers them and grants blessing to us even when our imperfections get in the way. This is exactly what happened this week. We worked hard, really hard, to find people and help people come to church, accept the challenge to get baptized and become like Christ, but it just wasn´t having any fruits. And then came the miracle. The whole Zone fasted and prayed that our area could baptize this week to complete a Zone of Zion, (that everyone baptizes). We ended up finding two registers of previous baptisms that hadn´t been sent in, and these two poor souls weren´t technically members of Christ´s Church. We sent in the two of them, and we effectively baptized two people before even leaving the house to preach that morning. The Lord works in Mysterious Ways, no? I love it here in Centro. We have a much smaller area to work than my old one, but it is a functioning ward with a full staff of authorized assistants of the Lord for this city, all of whom wish to work like dogs to save God´s children. I am very very very excited to be in a ward for the first time in my whole mission. We are going to get things rolling well if we listen to the Spirit and convey desires to help people come unto Christ. I have thought long and hard on the topic of prayer for a while now, and I believe that it is the single most important thing that we can do to begin, sustain and end our day. I find that often the nightly prayer is the most rewarding, though the most difficult to apply and/or remember the next day. My new plan is to try and make the morning prayer and prayers throughout the day more effective and with more results. Wilford Woodruff was visited by Brigham Young in a dream, and he said that the only thing that he told him was that the saints need to understand the importance of having the guide of the spirit constantly to assist them always in their lives. Well, the spirit comes through the prayer of faith, and if you want it in the day you have to ask for it genuinely and for the correct purposes. I love the mission, and recommend it to all as soon as one is able to, not when one plans to in the distant future. Satan is a cunning little devil, and will tempt you beyond what seems fair, and as we learn from King David´s example of not being in the fight when he should have been, he fell for Bathsheba and lost his exaltation despite his good works in the past. Go ahead and leave your nets "immediately" as did the Lord´s chosen apostles, for time is short, and the laborers are few. Imagine what would have happened to them if they had waited a few months or years to work with the Savior. They wouldn´t have been able to work with Him, for He had a work do now right then, and not later. Procrastinate later. Go out there and do some good now. With Love, Elder Lindsey

This week was nuts!

This week was nuts, full of events and ever so spiritual. To expound, we had an earthquake, 6.0, in Catamarca, and both of us felt and heard it, about 60 kilometers away from us, or about forty miles or so. It lasted for about ten seconds from what I could tell. We had a three foot snake in our pension that we took pictures of before pushing it out with a broom, a giant spider jumped at my companion during nightly planning, my bike got stollen and we will check tonight to see if the police have found it or not, we went to La Rioja to see Elder Zeballos of the Seventy who talked to us as a Zone, and our most promising investigator received a very clear answer when we all knelt down in the chapel to ask the Lord to give her one. Furthermore, another investigator showed up to church just out of the blue after a week of not being able to find her. The Lord sure does like to keep us on our toes. It has been strangely cool here for Catamarca this time of the year, but I assure you that it is just a fluke. As things warm up here in temperature I hope that things will continue to warm up in the hearts of the people around us so that more of God´s children can be saved. Perhaps the most important thing that has happened this week is that I have put in an extra large effort to never rest and to always be pushing myself to do everything possible and just to bring people to Christ. Nephi says I will go and do what the Lord has commanded, and not "I will sit around and think about it for too long first, and then maybe I will do something along the lines of what we have planned." Most importantly, the Spirit will always guide us in our actions, but we have to act to be guided. I have learned more of the Love of Christ this week as all of the crazy facets of life have piled themselves on me, and overwhelmingly it seems at times. The other morning I just needed the Father to calm my troubled soul, and earnestly knelt in prayer to ask Him for comfort. As Elder Bednar teaches, we must be willing to act on the answer that we receive, and the response which I got was to search the materials that I have to study to find the answer: a frustrating, but faith building reply. As I looked over all the books, scriptures, magazines and pamphlets that neatly resided on my desk, none of them struck me as the designated medium for this moment of love which I needed. Upon a more diligent search through my things, my mind fell upon a letter from a friend, which threatened to kick my butt when I got home if I didn´t give it my all. That, and other small phrases reminding me of the importance of the Spirit, as well as that the Lord can´t allow His work to mess itself up, not even if we try, really lifted my spirits. I stand all amazed at the love He offers each and every one of us, even now as I sit at the computer. I also stand all amazed in behalf of the love that He gives us and testify of its reality, that each of us can feel it and later testify of it to all we encounter through our example, smiles, choices, works and divine potential. I love y´all too, even if I do only write once a week. Be Good! Elder Lindsey