La mia settimana, March 16

We've been seeing Valentin some more, and he now has a fixed, definite baptismal date for the 26th of March.  He's making a ton of progress!  We saw him on Saturday and had a difficult lesson.  In short, the spirit wasn't very strong and we didn't seem to understand each other and Valentin didn't seem to understand hardly anything.  However, the next day, Sunday, we had church, except this sunday it wasn't normal church - we had stake conference.  This meeting took place in a hotel, and it took a little over an hour to travel there.  Nevertheless, Valentin was more than willing to make the journey (in fact, the day before he walked for an hour and a half to get to the church so that we could have our lesson.  Anyway, stake conference CHANGED him.  His countenance, at the end, was definately different.  He felt the spirit.  He loved it.  When we saw him the next day for another lesson, he kept going on about how he loved the meeting, especially the members.  ...  He's a great guy - we love him a ton! ...

We had one other lesson that was particularly amazing.  It was with a less active man, Willey.  He lost his job, his family left him, and he's just sad.  He has an amazing faith in Christ and in God - He knows that with their help he can do anything and he can recieve anything/everything for them - but he doesn't understand why he can't find work.  It was a cool lesson being guided by the spirit - we didn't use anything that we had planned.  Instead, I was able to share and describe the story of Shadrack, Meeshack, and Abednago (I have no idea how you spell those names...) and how they were about to be thrown into the fire because they wouldn't bow down to an idol.  They said that they knew that God would deliver them, but even if He didn't, the would continue to serve Him and not bow down to the idol, even if it meant being killed by fire.  The coolest part, for me, was near the end.  The story of Joseph Smith asking God why and for how long the suffering would continue, and then God responding "peace be to thy soul..."  I knew it was somewhere in D&C around 120, but I couldn't find it (this ended up actually being a miracle...).  However, a few minutes later, the correct chapter just seemed to "appear" - 121 - and we shared it with him.  It brought tears to Willey's eyes.  Then, right before the end of the lesson, right before the prayer, I had another amazing experience.  I had the strongest impression that I needed to tell him that God wanted him to hear and know this: that He loves him and that He wants to say to Willey "Peace be to thy soul."  So, in accordance with my feeling, I told him, in the name of Jesus Christ, these things.  It was neat for me feeling the authority of my calling as a representative of Christ, and it was absolutely amazing to see what it did for Willey.  The spirit was very, very strong all 3 of us were a little emotional (Willey more than Anz. Wilkinson and I...).  It was just an amazing experience!

... Thanks for your love, prayers, and support - I love you all!

-Anziano Barnes