Dear Family,
This week went well, the zone conference was amazing! It was really focused on The Book of Mormon and it was just
what I think the mission has been needing. Elder Nielson had a broadcast about the power of the Book of
Mormon. It really is our most powerful tool that we have. We have been trying to apply the Book of Mormon more in our
zone and in our companionship. My testimony only gets strengthened the more that I use it
and I’m sure that is what will happen to the investigators.
We decided to teach our neighbor the other day and he just
wanted to bible bash with us, towards the end he told me "what would you
do if you found out that you were wrong all along" I really pondered about
that afterwards during the day. Honestly to me it doesn’t seem possible, of course we
responded to the man with our testimonies but afterwards thinking about it, it
just doesn’t seem possible. To me logically it only makes sense, everything
that I have been taught makes perfect sense and I came to a conclusion that the
spirit also opens our minds and helps us understand when we let him but then
you had the confirmation of the spirit and it turns that "it makes
sense" to a certainty. To me if everything I taught wasn’t true then
nothing is... the world doesn’t exist and neither do we... He also attacked us
on the Book of Mormon and said that the Bible is all we need.
The first thing that came to my mind was "If Christ
came to your house and visited you and told you many important things and then
asked you to record them, would you?" "of course" he responded
and then we explained how Christ came to the Americas and visited God´s
children. but we can only know that through prayer and study of the Book of
Mormon in which the Spirit can testify to us. I think it’s interesting that
most of everyone here believes in Christ, in God, and in the Bible. But
why?
Its so natural to believe that God exists, but why? It’s
because they feel it and in that same way they can know that the Book of Mormon
is true.
Another great experience that I had this week was meeting
with one of the stake president, as a zone leader that is one of the responsibility
that we should do. We met with him and our mission president and the focus is
helping the members with missionary work and helping them be more involved. We
planned a bunch of stuff and then he gave a huge training on Sunday to all the
priesthood of the stake. I think that it will help this stake a ton. It’s the
only stake that doesn’t have its own zone. We are the zone leaders of two
stakes because this stake doesn’t have a zone yet because the members aren’t
supportive.
The members loved the training and are more excited to help
with the missionary work, so that was good.
To answer one of dad´s questions, it’s interesting that you
asked that question, about the things I learn as a zone leader and how they
will affect future leadership. That experience that I had is an answer. I
learned so much about the responsibilities of the Stake President and meeting
with him, we get to see what he focuses on and how he handles things. As a zone
leader if I try to take in all of the responsibility, nothing will happen...but
if I give responsibility to the district leaders and to the other missionaries,
that’s when things happen. It’s the same as a stake president he said, he does everything
that he can but he gives responsibility to his secretaries and
counselors.
I’m glad to hear that everyone is doing well.
I hope that everyone has a good week.
Love
Elder Toma
