...it's amazing how powerful the spirit is...

A little bit of the life of Elder Marquis:

This past week was pretty cool. Me and my companion have become pretty good buddies through this change and although we had our differences at first we're pretty good now. I've also been trying to organize EVERYTHING better lately...my studies, my language, my thoughts, the way I act, and my plans. I really enjoy just putting everything out there to look and plan at how I'm going to accomplish everything. I've realized that if you want to make long range goals or any goals really, that you need to look at the big picture first. After that.. start breaking your plans and ideas into weeks and then into days, so that little by little you can have a manageable working schedule and accomplish a lot at the same time. I'm trying to put this into practice right now...and by doing this it is actually making my work habits here in the mission a lot more effective and a lot less stressful. Funny, lol.

The whole reason why I started doing this actually was because of a lesson that we had this past week. It was like 9 o'clock and we were just sitting around our house talking when one of our investigators walked up to our door. So we invited him in and had a little talk. It was really cool because he told us that the day after we met him when we invited him to pray, when he woke up the next morning he felt relieved and was thinking about us. And he began organizing and cleaning up a lot of things in his life...but the sad part is that as he opened up to us, and this happens quite often, is that we began to see a lot of the things that this man has been going through and just how lost this guy really feels. The saddest part is when he began to tell us about his mother. She is like his best friend and almost is only friend, the only person who he feels he can rely on. And she is going to die from cancer within the next month or so. More than anything else, I wanted him to understand is that he isn't alone, that Christ is always there for us even when we don't want Him, He's always there. It was really nice to be able to help him. More than anything he just wanted someone to talk to, someone that could help him understand why all of this is happening and that although he is going to lose his mother he doesn't have to lose himself in this situation. It never ceases to amaze me how everyone looks to us for the answer. This man was just someone that we talked to on the street one day but he felt that he could come to us. It's crazy. Everyone believes that we have all the answers...and I know I don't. But something really amazing is how powerful the spirit is. No matter when this has happened, it just seems that the spirit knows what to say that will help them understand and feel loved, needed, and not so confused.

Just last night we had the chance to eat dinner with some one of my favorite member families, the Rios Maldanado family, and while we were just sitting there, the father asked me about the scripture about baptisms of the dead in 1 Corintios 15:29. He wanted to know the significance of this, who Juan was talking to, (love the spanish :) and everything else. After explaining all of that the conversation got moved to temple marriages and family sealings and how important all of that is. Then he started asking me about past sins and if some sins are unforgivable...and I explained how Christ died that we could repent but that it wasn't always going to be the easiest repentance process. Then we began talking about how families can be together forever and how there are a lot more blessings that we can receive through the temples and a lot more stuff we talked about. When it was all said and done though, he and his wife said that they finally felt ready to be sealed with their children in the temple.

Something that President Monson talked about during this past conference was how sad he gets every week when he has to un-seal families because of problems that they are having in this moment, and it got me to thinking, about how we really should try our hardest in this life to stay sealed together and not divorce from our spouses because although we may go through some really hard trials, whether it be the fault of one or the other, that pain will pass. And when we are all together on the other side of the veil... all of those bad feelings that we have towards one another won't exist, because Satan won't be there to tempt us with that hatred, and once again we will love one another unconditionally.

Anyways, this past week was really fun, and I hope that I can continue these habits that I'm making, that I can achieve all the goals and plans that I have, both in the mission and for when I come home.

And I also really am enjoying La Blanca and the beach LOLOL...jajaja!!!

Love you all tons,
Elder Brandon L. Marquis