May 23 in Orizaba

What a great week! We worked super hard with D. and his family and they're incredible! We also are going to begin today to work with a man named E. His girlfriend is a FANTASTIC recent convert named L, and she really wants him to get baptized so that they can get sealed in the temple! We normally don't put lessons on Mondays but seeing as how this is the only day that he can see us, we have a lesson with him soon at 4, so I won't be writing that much this week. We hope to get these 2 families baptized so that Elder Howard can get a few families sealed in his second year!

It is amazing to me how in these past few weeks we've been finding people to teach. Throughout my entire mission, having people to teach is all about how well WE work each day, how many WE can find, how many doors WE can get opened. Here, in the final stretch of my mission, I am learning in a much deeper way that it's not US. It's HIM. This is HIS work, and He can do His own work. We are nothing more than servants in His hands. All the people that we have been teaching are nothing short of miracles, where all our work had apparently nothing to do with finding them. That's God's grace.

I've learned that God's grace is really free. It's like how when a little kid's parents pay for him to get piano lessons. The price is paid, the deed is done, now there is only one thing left: get good at piano! But if the kid chooses not to listen in his classes, if he chooses not to practice, well, he will only learn a little bit of piano, as opposed to everything that he could have learned! It is the same for us. We are here on this earth to learn to live with our Heavenly Father. This is done by keeping His commandments and by living the gospel of his Son. Those are the celestial laws that He abides, and we must learn to abide them too if we are to return and live with Him. The price was already paid. It was paid with Jesus Christ, in the garden of Getsemane, upon a cross, and within an empty tomb. Salvation is free! It only depends upon us, if we want to prepare ourselves and learn, or not.

News from the family: We got an official return date on Monday! It's June 29!