March 11, 2018 Power of the Book of Mormon

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