Power of Prayer

November 05, 2012

Hey family,

Wow, everything is going crazy in the United States right now. I had some investigators get worried about my family and friends, because they know I’m from California, and they thought that California is close to New York. All week I was hearing about the Hurricane that hit New York. Wow that´s pretty crazy that it went so high north. Did a lot of people die? Just another sign that the world´s going to end. Who knows, maybe it´ll even be like the movie 2012. I`m not too worried if the world ends in 2012. We have the Christmas conference marked on the exact day that the world is supposed to end, so even if it does, I think that all of us missionaries together will be taken up to heaven or something. No worries :)

I bet everyone is going crazy with the elections in the US but it´s been pretty normal out here, there aren´t that many people talking about it, although I’m sure I’ll hear who wins before next Monday. Oh well, I feel so disconnected with it. I think if I were to vote right now, I would just put on the ballot Jesus Christ. Come on down, let´s start the millennium already!

That’s cool about the Folsom 6th ward, things really are changing. Nothing’s going to be the same when I come back. Haha. Folsom is just exploding, isn´t it? I got a letter from Elder Olpin the other day, he´s doing fine, I’ll have to tell him that he´s not even part of Folsom 3rd ward anymore. Who’s going to be the bishop of 6th ward?

This week was good, it´s getting hotter, so now it´s feeling more like Brasil. Zone Leader Council was good, but it was pretty rushed, there are a lot of things happening. We´re going to be getting a lot of new missionaries soon, with this change in the ages for missionaries. We have 50,000 missionaries in the field right now, but i heard within a year there are going to be 110,000 missionaries, wow, que loucura! Well, now everyone´s going to hear the gospel. What a good thing, the world is needing it.

I´m reading through the Book of Mormon again, and I got to the Isaiah chapters in 2 Nephi, which is already hard in English, but Portuguese is even worse. But I read through them this past week and I actually was understanding pretty well, which is crazy. Anyway, I was reading in 2 Néfi 25 about the marvelous work and a wonder that God will do in the last days. Wow, it was super spiritual. This work is already happening, and we´re part of it! And, even more, the work is accelerating, becoming more intense every day. It´s an exciting feeling.

So for funny things this week, I’ll tell you a joke that Elder Windous told me.

So there are a lot of Churches in the world, and every single one thinks it´s the true church, thinks it´s better than the others. So there was sent a grand invite; every denomination, sect, church, religion, etc. has to send a representative, and everyone will get together, there´ll be a great debate, and whoever wins will be the true church. So everyone got together in this one building to have this debate. Unfortunately that building exploded, and everyone from all of the religions in the whole world died.

The only one that was living after this big explosion was the LDS representative. Do you know why?

Because he was on Mormon standard time and arrived way late.

Hahahahaha. I thought of this when you were saying that everyone at Church gets there late. I liked this joke.

Something spiritual that happened this week:

Yesterday morning before Church Elder Windous and I went out to get investigators and bring them to church. Unfortunately, NOBODY came, so we went back to Church, because we had arranged for some members to go and get some investigators, and we wanted to see if they had arrived. When we returned to Church, we saw that we had zero investigators!!! This is a missionary nightmare! So, during Elders Quorum and Sunday School, we went out again and tried one more investigator. This investigator is a young couple that we started teaching a couple of weeks ago. When we got there, they had just woken up, and were still in pajamas. We told them that they could get dressed and everything and still come to sacrament meeting. They said that they would come, so we went back to church.

Sacrament meeting came, and they still hadn´t arrived. I sat there anxious as I prayed that this young couple would come. The first hymn was sung, the first prayer offered, the announcements declared. As the sacrament hymn was ending, I was feeling discouraged. We had done everything to bring people to church, but nobody came. I was already in prayer, repenting for not having brought anyone to church, when this young couple came into the chapel, Just in time to partake of the bread! What a miracle!!! after the sacrament meeting, all of the members were excited to have these investigators at church, too, so everyone went to go talk to them. This really strengthened my testimony, that when we do everything, and force ourselves to the maximum, the Lord helps us out.

But yeah, I’ve got to go, but I hope everyone is doing well. I love you all a ton, keep reading, keep praying. Keep me updated on how the move is going.

Love,

Elder Twitchell

PS I didn´t get the Halloween package yet. I´ll be getting it in the beginning of December, then :)