Weekly Letter: March 29-April 4, 2011

para todos uds:

So, here I am reporting on another week in the mission....and now with
fourteen months as a missionary...wow! Yeah, we had a good week this
week. Conference always does that! However, I don´t want to write more
about this week until I write about something that happened last week.

We baptized Amalia about a month ago, and she has flourished as a
member since. She is such a help in the mission work. Whenever we have
referrals from her, or we are teaching over there, she starts to look
after our investigators over there, trying to give them a little bit
of support that they might need. And she´s always talking to her
neighbors about us.

Apart from that, she has grown so much spiritually. Last week we were
teaching a class on the Primitive Church of Jesus Christ, and some of
the characteristics of that church....when we mentioned the work for
the dead, she made a comment about how the spirits are also working
hard at this missionary work. I was surprised by the comment, because
we hadn´t ever explained that, but I thought it wasn´t too strange
because she went to the visitor´s center the day before by the temple.

However, when we talked to her afterward, she told us that nobody had
explained that to her. She almost entered in the baptismal part
of the temple without realizing what she was doing. She then said that
she saw into the temple and saw people working here...but also the
spirits working on the other side of the veil. The vision only lasted
a moment, and she told the sister next to her what she saw. The
sister explained a little bit about the doctrine before entering into
the baptistry. However, when she told us this we had no doubt that she
had received revelation from God.

The work keeps going miraculously. I think there are some very few
times that we realize how meaningless this work would be if it were a
work of a man. Two young men....one who is learning the
language....cannot do what we do. Even in the hard times, I keep
remembering that and I´m overwhelmed with gratitude.

This week we talked to an investigator, Enrique Guerra about the Plan
of Salvation. We had already taught the first lesson to him, and
were expecting a discussion about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon.
But when we got there, he didn´t express a single doubt of the
truthfulness of Joseph Smith´s calling, or of the Book of Mormon. He only
asked for clarification about where it was written, because we
explained it was in America. He had already read the chapter we
left for him to read, and then proceeded from the beginning of the book
to read. He was confused because it talked about Egypt(more on that
later), and Jerusalem....which confused him because the book, we had
said, was written here in the Americas.

Anyway, we had a excellent lesson with him. Actually when my companion
mentioned the Spirit World, he looked him straight in the eye and
said, "I believe you." The only thing that got us down is that he can
only receive us once a week because of his work. Then later, he was
going to go to the Conference with his wife, but he got an unexpected
call from work and had to go in. My companion and I (along with him)
were disappointed, because we felt that he could have gotten baptized
this week.

I wrote a note on Egypt to remind me of something that we realized
today. Today we went as a Zone to some pyramids in our area. I´ve
attached some of the photos from the trip, but I didn´t get as many as
I wanted because my camera ran out of battery. However, it was really
impressing to see a place outside the circular pyramid(one of only
three in the world...and in my area yeah!), that collected water, but
also could have been used as a baptismal font.

However, the thing that really impressed me was next to the other
pyramid...and I didn´t get a picture of this one. However, we should
know that the language in which was written the Book of Mormon
originally was Reformed Egyptian, which implies that Lehi and his
family had a lot of Egyptian influence in their family. So we would
think that there would be a little bit of Egyptian influence here in
the Americas, right?

When we went up to the other pyramid, we saw stone building that was
shaped peculiarly. When we got up we saw that it was a cross, but with
one end rounded. I asked the security that was there what it was. He
simply said that he didn´t know exactly but was shaped like an
Egyptian cross. I looked at him and said, "Egyptian?!" he looked at me
and laughed, "Yeah, weird, right?" I guess he didn´t realized what was
going on in my head because he didn´t have the background knowledge
that we do about the Book of Mormon as members of the church. He
continued to talk to the other missionaries about other things, and so
we didn´t have time to explain the significance of this discovery.

Obviously this doesn´t prove anything...but the Lord is never going to
prove the Book of Mormon, but it definitely strengthens a testimony
acquired by the spirit. No one will be able to prove the Book of
Mormon is not true, because it is, however, no one will be able to
prove that the Book of Mormon is true either. Because that would
frustrate the plan of God, who wishes that we walk "with the eye of
faith." However, how glad I am to be here to be able learn more about
this, and obtain a testimony even greater than before about these
things.

I am so glad for this opportunity of being a missionary, not just for
these activities which really please a person like me who is
interested in History, but the opportunity to be a representative of
the true church on the face of the earth. No unhallowed hand can keep
this work from progressing....and so it keeps going.

I´m sorry that I couldn´t write more about the week, but time is
short. Thank you all for your support and prayers. Please keep praying
for me!

Cariños,

Elder Blackham