What a Great Conference!

These are photos of the two baptisms we had this week.  Mia (the friend of Mayra) and Maria.  They were both amazing!  The other photo is of Elder Son, Elder Watson and me.  Watson was my comp in the MTC and Elder Son was in our District there.  They are both now Zone Leaders, as well.

Hey family,

Wow what a great conference that we had, and the great oportunity that we had to listen to the voice of the prophet and his 12 apostles!  Everyone was extremely surprised on the new announcement of the age that the new missionaries can now leave. I have been a witness, though of the missionaries who leave at 18 years old here in mexico, and it is true what President Monson said about their maturity level and their desire to serve. What a great push in the direction of the missionary work for the church. I would believe that the number of missionaries will go up by at least 10 or 20 thousand with that new report. But I was thinking about it, and how all of the girls back home are going to be peacin' out for their missions now! haha. I guess I will just have to wait for them!  

I love the messages that they gave us this week, and it was another amazing experience to receive the answers to my prayers. I had a couple of questions in my mind as I entered this year's conference, and it always amazes me that the talks are exactly related to the needs that I have. It is a great testimony builder to me that the prophet and the leaders of the church receive directly from God, the things that we need to hear. I was blown away by a couple of the talks, and the great spirit that I felt. This really is the Lord's church, and the leaders of the church are 100% inspired with the words of our Heavenly Father.

My companion and I kind of had a tough week here. We faced a little bit of a trial of our faith, but this week should be a lot better. Although we invited everyone to the church to hear the voice of the prophet, we just had a bit of success. It was tough to find and even harder to committ the people to coming to church this week. I know that this week will be better, as I apply all of the things that we learned in the conference. One upside of this week was the different capacitationes that we had. We had one with all of the zone leaders, and then on Wednesday, we were able to teach the zone everything we had learned. We learned some great things on how to work with the members. The mission is really taking a turn, and focusing more on references and lessons with members. They say that one day we won't even be able to contact or knock doors. It's a good thing that we are preparing now, and everyone knows that when we work with the members, we will have a lot more success.

Ok well another trip to Lake Powell without me! SWEET! haha. I loved seeing all of the pictures, but I am not going to lie, I was a little bit more jealous of the pictures I saw of all you guys together at the conference center! I would have loved to have been there to watch the prophet and listen to him speak in english! I was only able to watch the priesthood session in english. I hope that there isn't another Lake Powell trip planned, or any other trip for that matter, before i get home! haha. I think you can wait 8 months, can´t you! And then we will party!

love you all,

Elder Holmes