Week 47

Hello Family and Friends,

I hope this letter finds you all well back home! I am so thankful for the letters of love and support you all sent me. Thanks forever for all you do! You dont know how much it means to me to feel so loved here on the mission. I am headed for 11 months in the mission! I can't believe it. Time is going by absolutely way too fast, I am happy to see what will happen in the other half of the mission. This week was a good week here in San Francisco, we are trying our hardest to find more people to teach and share the gospel. We challenged one of our investigators to baptism but he decided it wasnt for him, it hurt to hear that, but as the Lord says, "And ye are called to bring forth the recollection of mine elect; for mine elect hear my voice and harden not their hearts", we know that the Lord is preparing people who will not harden their hearts and will accept the call to be baptized. We realized we have lots of families we are teaching that are not progressing, we felt bad but realized again we had to go and seek for those who will progress. We are being super blessed with finding people on the streets and contacting them. In the mission we say "lo que busca, hallará" or what you seek you will find. Its so true, if we have the mind set that we want to find families, the Lord places them on our paths.

We are preparing Mercedes, another investigator for baptism on the 24, she is a great investigator and has waited since 2007 to be baptized and has finally decided to change her life and enter into the waters of baptism. We are excited and looking forward to that day. We have many people at different stages of the gospel again, we are trying so hard to help them become closer to their savior Jesus Christ. We are working hard and doing our best to find the chosen, or escogidos of the Lord. This week the Elders from Zapote baptized and completed a family and we had the opportunity to sing at the service. We sang Come thou Fount in spanish and Elder Bagley played the violin, it went really well. While watching the service I realized how important it is that we search and find families. Its not some random task our president has asked us to do but it is a task from the Lord, that He asks us to do. We left the baptismal service ready and excited to help families find the gospel. I also thought about the wife of the man who got baptized, she had remained faithful and strong in the church, all those years in the hopes that one day her husband would come to find the truth, now they are both on the journey to the temple.

I know and feel as I testify to families that they can be forever. I now see with the eyes of our Heavenly Father, I see every family in the street as if they were dressed in white, I imagined them all back in the presence of their Heavenly Father with their families at their side. I know that its only possible through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I know that only in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints the true authority of God is found and it was restored through the Prophet Joseph Smith. I dont have one single doubt about it. I know that one day, if we hold out faithful, we can all have the opportunity and the privelege to arrive and kiss the feet of our beloved Savior.

Well family, I am sorry this letter will be so short, but I will try to write more next week! I love you all very much, you are always in my hearts and in my thoughts.
PURA VIDA!
Elder Falor