Letter 5/14/12

Well I am pretty short on time today....I did get a chance to skype with family this week!! That is always such a huge blessing and source of inspiration for me....you just feel good after talking with the most important people in your life after almost 5 months of absence.

We got to go to the temple this week....boy talk about another source of renewing your energy. It was really interesting.....the last time I went through the temple, I really didn't understand very much of what was being said....this time, I understood everything soo well, that I was almost shocked. I'm learning the language even though time to study and practice is rare....the Lord really is loosening my tongue....my accent is almost gone....people here almost always understand what I say (there's always an occasional crazy who doesn't want to understand, but that happened in Alabama too when I was speaking english so hey...)

We had a zone leader council in Recife on wednesday. Elders Skousen and Markham just got called as zone leaders too, so that was real cool to be there with them. President Lanius talked alot about how the mission needs to step it up in terms of comittment. There's an abundance of knowledge and
skills amongst the missionaries.....we just need to apply it all and as President put it, "get your shirt sweaty". There is sooo much work to be done here....the mission is on the up. The spirit of the Lord is here amongst these missionaries. I am so excited for what the remaining 14 months of my mission have in store for me!

All of the American missionaries in my zone

I'll talk a bit about Eliel, and then I gotta boost! I'm running super late today....Eliel is a man that we found through the english class that we have been teaching every wednesday night. We found out that he himself is actually an english teacher (it's funny how thick his accent is in english). We asked him if we could share a message with him one day. He invited us to his house. He eventually revealed to us that he was a pastor of 8 different churches throughout the course of his life. He saw in each and every one of
them that the churches were man-made and not divinely established. He was always searching for the truth. One night, while searching the bible, he found Jeremiah 33:3.....which talks about searching for answers from the Lord....that night, he had a vision! He said that he saw me, but that he didn't know exactly what it meant....he had never met me before in this point in time. About 3 weeks later, he saw me walking on the street, and was blown away. Through his friend (our barber), he found out about the english class and we met him there......wow huh??? I could not believe that he had seen me in a VISION!!!

Eliel

He told us that he wanted to be baptized the next day...we told him that he had to wait to visit the church 2 times before being baptized....he started to try and persuade us that he needed to be baptized, showing us scriptures and everything! I never thought that as a missionary, I would find myself on the side of telling someone to wait to be baptized! The Lord showed his power to me through this experience.....I said to my companion that I would be perfectly content with knocking doors for the rest of my mission without a single baptism if I could just see this one man make this sacred covenant with the Lord. For all you future missionaries out there, just let me say this....it's an experience like this one that really makes you realize just how tender the mercies of the Lord are....Things like this don't happen everyday, but when they do.....they make you remember that IT IS ALL WORTH IT.

In the words of Sammy Jackson, a man I met in Alabama, "Have a great one!"

Until next time,

-Elder McKinley