Elder Sean J. Lambert's Mission: 7 December 2015

Dear Friends and Family,

This week has been a good one all things considered. Let me tell you why.

We had a baptism!!! Woooo!!

Ramón is awesome. His Girlfriend Eunice introduced him to the church about a year and a half ago, and ever since he has been slowly changing his heart to this grand gospel. He found US one day on the street and on Wednesday, he came down into the freezing cold font with me.

This is the missionary that really converted him:

Always remember friends. The influence we have on those around us is incredibly important. Essential even. Every member of the church is part of the work of salvation.

And, if that wasn't enough, we had stake conference this weekend.

Normally, missionaries are not allowed to go to the first two sessions of stake conferences, but this time we were. All the Elders of the stake came to the priesthood leadership session and we were trained by Elder Villalobos of the area seventy. He is an AMAZING speaker and gave an amazing capacitation on missionary work and how it should work within each ward. He also spoke in each of the other sessions and gave amazing discourses.

One thing I want to share about his capacitation in the priesthood session comes in Moroni 7. For those that are familiar with the Book of Mormon, this is the Charity chapter of the Book. Mormon wrote an epistle to his children using much of the same inspired wording as Paul to the Corinthians and taught an important lesson about the pure love of Christ. He says:

But charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him.

Pay special attention to the text. Whoso is found possessed of it. What does that mean. Does it mean that WE possess it? No. We can never hold on to the love of our savior. It is his. BUT, we CAN reflect it. We can recieve the capacity to be examples of that love and to feel it in our lives. THAT is what charity is.

THEN it was the Christmas devotional. If you didn't see it, I think it should be up on Youtube by now. Elder Bednar gave a fabulous explanation of the concept of Christ being the "light of the world" by using the example of his birth and how it was experience in Book of Mormon times. Amazing speech. Then, President Uchtdorf spoke about the joy that Christmas brings, especially when we focus ourselves on the savior and try to be more like him.

The devo got me thinking. The things I felt in that meeting, listening to the words of the first Presidency are....different. I have never felt the same thing while reading a novel or watching a movie or even associating with friends and family. These things have, at times, brought about very strong emotions (especially the latter), but nothing has brought about THIS type of emotion except the gospel. Christ and his gospel bring about true changes of heart. They bring about pure joy. Things that last and matter. NOT artificial fleeting pretty feelings. This devotional was one of those experiences that reminded me of that. I hope we all can remember that this season.

Sé que este evangelio es el unico fuente de felicidad duradero. Sé que Cristo vive y que El es el Hijo Unigenito de Dios.

Los amo,

Elder Lambert