Oct 7, 2013

A great week of spiritual recharge, no?

I hope everyone loved conference as much as I did. It is always so incredible to be able to hear living Prophets. It feels like they are really talking right at you! So incredible!

This week we are so excited, we will be baptizing a young kid of 19 years during this week. His name is Adrian and is such a smart and ready kid! He is a special story, we have been working with him since I got here. But he is a young kid with a really troubled past. Due to that troubled past we have been working through a lot of things, and ultimately had to wait awhile to get permission from the First Presidency of the church for him to be baptized. One night about a week ago our President called us, and gave us the incredible news that he has been passed and given permission to be baptized from the First Presidency. It was such an amazing thing to hear! Then the next night we went to his house, and gathered his family around, who are already members, and we read him a scripture in D and C about forgiveness, then as we looked at him and told him that living Prophets of God have given him permission to be baptized... Wow, the spirit was burning SO strong and it was so incredible. Their father is always at work, and almost never there, as I think about it, I know that Adrian is going to be the worthy strong priesthood holder in that family and that household as it is, is so needed, and it was talked about in conference.

As we have been going through this processes with Adrian, I recently read a talk by Elder Holland given in the conference of May 2012 called the Laborers in the Vineyard; it is an incredible talk. It is based on and describes the parable in Matthew 20:1-15, he talks about it in many different ways. But one point that he makes I love so much, he says" His concern is for the faith at which you finally arrive, not the hour of the day in which you got there." I know that- that is SO true. It doesn't matter what we have done in life, It doesn't matter how late it is, He is ALWAYS there for us to take us back. He wants us, to return to Him more than anything! He loves us more than we could EVER comprehend, and we can feel the incredible healing power of the Atonement, but we need to look and turn to Him take his hand, and follow.

I love all so much

Hope all is well

Love Elder Lloyd