El e la Dadiva

Making Asado

"P" Day Candy Bar

December 15, 2014

Dear Family,

You guys are always so busy doing awesome things. We have the best family ever. Thanks for sending all of those pictures. I also got the book of testimonies that you sent and all the other stuff. Thank you so much. I loved reading all of your testimonies. They definitely gave me strength to keep giving it my all. It is now one of my treasured possessions that I have. 

I thought you guys knew Elder Craig Christensen but I wasn't sure. I loved the conference that we had with him. I felt the spirit really strongly. 

It is interesting that you talked about the sacrament in your email because as a mission we are focusing a lot more on church attendance. Pres. Cook has been talking a lot about it and so I loved the quote that you sent me. As I read what you were saying about the importance of the sacrament meeting it hit me that the atonement of Christ is so important that we HAVE to remember it every week through the sacrament. We only celebrate Christmas once a year, but every week we have the opportunity to receive the biggest gift we have ever received. If we don't go to church every Sunday then we are showing that we don't care too much about this gift that God has given us. The problem is that many people  don't know how to use this gift so that is why they don't care too much. I can just imagine a cave man receiving a microwave as a present... He has no clue what to do with a microwave. Our job is to help everyone understand first, what the atonement is and second, how to use the atonement in our lives. 

This week was stake conference here in Las Piedras. Elder Havens and I spoke in the Priesthood session of the conference.  There was a good attendance at the main session but only one of our investigators showed up. His name is Deyvid and he is progressing super well. At the beginning he questioned if God existed and now he is at the point where he knows God lives and he knows the Book of Mormon is true. He committed to live the word of wisdom yesterday. He is super smart so sometimes it is hard to teach him because he goes off talking about the stars and stuff haha The cool thing is that the Gospel connects to just about anything so he really likes it all. He has a 17 year old daughter that we are teaching as well. She didn't believe in God either but now she believes and she has a really good understanding of the atonement. We also are teaching Antonella who is awesome! The first 2 charlas that we had with her she didn't understand a thing but now she is reading and she is memorizing everything. She didn't go to church because she had family problems but she really wants to get baptized. The only problem is that she lives with her boyfriend. Dang Uruguay. The Silvera Family is doing well. (They are Lucia and Diego) The only problem is that the mom started to work on Sundays but she will only work for 3 more weeks so hopefully they will be able to get baptized here pretty soon. Juan Carlos moved :( so we lost contact with him. But we have some good things happening here in Las Piedras.These people are my mission! I love all of them and they are all progressing so well. I love missionary work.

As far as Skype goes. I am not sure what we are going to do. I will let you know next P day at what time we will call. It honestly doesn't feel like Christmas at all haha! Because all of the children in the street are  always lighting off fireworks and such. It is definitely a different atmosphere but I am glad for what the church has done with Èl e la Dàdiva. It definitely helps us to remember what this time of season is all about. Christ Lives.

I love you guys!

Elder Lacey

Dear Dad,

We will have to go golfing when I get back so I can show you who is the real boss here. Haha! I am glad that you were able to put a good game together to beat Andrew. Maybe if you keep beating him every time you will humble him enough to get him baptized!  

I love that talk that Pres. Uchtdorf gave! I am still waiting to get it in the Liahona. I think it comes out in January or something here. Pres. Cook taught us a little bit  about that a little while ago. Many times we look at the faults of others but what we really need to do is look at what we can do better. If we do that then we will be more humble and more open to correction which will lead to progression.

I hope you had a Happy Birthday!

Love

Elder Lacey