My sheep hear my voice

8/8  This week while we were teaching Eva, we had a really cool experience. We were teaching her the plan of salvation and got to the part of our life here on earth. I was explaining the things we need to do here on earth: have faith in Jesus Christ, repent, be baptized, etc. When I got to baptism, she commented that she had already been baptized. I began to explain how it is necessary to be baptized by someone with authority from God. She realized that the baptism she had had wasn't done with the authority, and asked right then and there if she could get baptized again. I was a little thrown off, because I was planning on setting a baptismal date at the end of the lesson, and her question kind of threw off the whole lesson plan, haha. We invited her right then to be baptized the first week of September, and she accepted. We had a wonderful lesson with her. She also came to church again this week and loved it. She really likes singing the hymns.

We had a really good lesson with Manuel and his wife this week as well. As I said before, Ima, his wife was holding him back a bit. We had a lesson to help her overcome her doubts that she had. She told us that she doesn't believe it's necessary to go to a church to worship. We talked about that for a while but it didn't seem like we could get anywhere. Finally I asked her if she really had the desire to know if the church of Jesus Christ was the church of God here on the earth. She said yes. We then read Alma 32:27 that says if you have no more than a desire to believe, let that desire grow within you. Then the whole attitude changed. We began explaining what she needed to do in order to let it grow, read the Book of Mormon, pray, and go to church. She admitted that she had never offered a personal prayer. That is exactly what we were looking for. We told her to start praying every day, and told Manuel to help her. Manuel kept saying "I'm going to convince her this week!". We have high hopes for this family. Manuel is definitely the one who will carry his family to the font! He is so ready!

This week I found a whole new meaning to the scripture in John 10. Verse 14 says: "I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine." It brings us back to the principle that the Lord is preparing people, His sheep, in every area of the world. He knows who they are, but we don't. That outlines the great need for diligent missionaries who are dedicated to finding those of His fold. Later in verse 27 it says: "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me." This scripture was outlined by my experiences this week with Eva and Manuel. It is very clear that they recognize the message we bring to them. They are clearly prepared people who know and hear the voice of the  spirit testify of what we teach. I feel so blessed for the opportunity I have had to get to know them, and the opportunity that I continue to have in teaching them the restored gospel!

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