10/15/18: Otro! 🌊

 Comp study on the water

Órale Cuate!

Another sweet one here in Brentwood! We had another baptism! Our girl Betty Zamora entered the waters of baptism on Saturday, and it was awesome. She has been meeting with the missionaries for around 6 months. Her kids are all members of the church, but she never was baptized. We had a lesson with her on Wednesday and brought a member with us. At the start of the lesson she told us that she wasn't feeling ready for her baptism. Brother Romero began bearing powerful testimony to her, and she said she would be baptized, but that she wanted to push it up a week to this past Saturday! Her son came from Virginia to perform the ordinance and it was awesome.

 Bautismo

We also had Stake Conference this last weekend and were able to attend the Saturday night session with someone who recently has come back to church. He was asked to bear his testimony on ministering, and right before he went up, another brother from our ward shared his as well. The coolest part is that the first brother was the one that ministered to the less active brother for years, until this past month he decided to come back. When our friend got up to bear his, he got up, looked at the crowd, and said "Standing here brings back a lot of memories..." Pretty sure everyone started crying at this point. After a long pause where the spirit enveloped the room, he went on to explain how he served a mission and after many tough experiences left the church for a long time. The only reason he came back was because of this dear friend who always encouraged and uplifted him. Ministering is inspired people! Do it! 

 The end of New York!

The end! 

I was thinking a lot about that experience in stake conference and how difficult it is sometimes to align our will with God's. I found this devotional from 2013 titled "I Will Give Myself to Him". 

He brings up a cool example here, 

"If you ask people in the United States to name the two most important things for our physical health, nearly 95 percent say “diet and exercise”—like we would think. Then, if you ask these same people, “Are you eating right and exercising enough?”—what do you think they would say? Between 5 percent and 10 percent say they are. There is an obvious gap between knowing something and doing it. Most people know what they should do, but few have the will to do it."

  Rottweiler on roids 

Swan!

People know what they should be doing, but how many people actually do it? As members of Christ's church we know what we should be doing, but how many of us do it fully?   

"desires are everything. We need to want what God wants. We need to say what He wants said because we want to say what He wants said. We need to do what He wants done because we want to do what He wants done. And we need to be a witness of God’s Beloved Son because we want to be a witness. Then we know we are giving our whole soul to Him—no little piece of us wants to do something contrary to His will."

That is what we need to do. NO piece of us should want anything contrary to the will of God. Once we achieve that, we can know that we are fully enveloped in his cause to "Bring to pass the eternal life and immortality of man". 

The joy that comes from even striving to fully align our will with the father's is the most powerful feeling in the world. It's something I want to captivate for the rest of my life, and show others how to obtain it also. 

Love you all and hope you have an awesome week! 

Elder Adam Ray Allen
New York City Mission 
700 White Plains Rd Ste 315 Scarsdale, NY 10583

 Trío for 2 hours! 

  The end!