13 November 2012

Folklorico - November 12, 2012

Dear Family and Friends,

Another week has passed, and, as always, too much has happened to even begin to be able to recount it all.

I was reminded last night that the week isn´t over until it is really over. It was 9 PM, Sunday night (usually at around 9 PM on Sunday night we are arriving home exhausted from a week of work, ready to sleep) and somehow, at this hour, I found myself seated by the side of the road with a group of slightly drunken middle-aged men playing Argentine folk music. We were passing by on our way home, and Hermana Medina recognized some of the songs so we started up a little conversation, and the next thing we knew they had invited us to sit down and they were enthusiastically playing us love ballads. We gave them pass-along cards and invited them to church. One of the men kept talking to me in Portuguese for some reason, and I kept having to remind him that I speak Spanish.

Anyways, the best part of the week was our multi-zone conference with Elder ViƱas. He is an area 70 and a very inspiring, spiritual man. He spoke to us for over 2 hours and I loved every second.

Before the conference he asked every missionary to come prepared with a 5-minute talk about the atonement of Jesus Christ and how it helps us in our missions. Everyone assumed he was going to select a few of us to give our talks in front of everyone, but in the end he just led a big discussion and had us all share what we had learned in preparing our talks. I love talking about the atonement...there is nothing else I would rather talk about. It is the root and the heart of my testimony and the reason why I am here. He invited us to make our lives and our missionary-work more centered in the atonement of Jesus Christ.

I left feeling inspired to be better and hopeful and determined to change, which proves that teaching true doctrine changes behavior much more effectively than talking about behavior changes behavior.

Well, it´s going to be a short one this week. I love you all very much,

Hermana Parker

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