I testify that God restored His church and His gospel through His prophet, Joseph Smith

Hi guys!

How are you all? 🙂 I hope SO well! Hermana Madrid and I have had a really great week. I say really great because, despite it being the hardest week of my whole mission, I have been able to see many ways in which I can improve myself! 🙂 I know that we need to be tried sometimes (all the time) to be able to be refined!

On Tuesday we had a consejo de lideres with Presidente Smith in Xela. I know I think everything is amazing but THIS was really amazing. His theme for the counsel was 2 Ne 26:15: ¨And the prayers of the faithful shall be heard.¨ We talked about the importance of the message of the Restauracion, asking inspired questions, teaching lessons completely guided by the Spirit, contacting in a powerful way, about the AREA BOOK and a lot about chapter 8 of Preach My Gospel. I think what most impacted me from this conference is that when we are diligent in recording, planning, coordinating our efforts and working HARD and being truly obedient, the Lord works alongside us. Presidente is making amazing clarifications in the mission. He has challenged us to leave our Bible in the house at all times. (If we desperately need to use the Bible, every house here has one.) Our lessons will always principally be taught from the Book of Mormon so the spirit can testify of this testament of Christ! We are always and will forever be contacting DIRECTLY and powerfully declaring that we have been called by a prophet, that God has restored His church through a modern prophet, Joseph Smith, and that as a fruit of this restoration, He has given us another testament of Jesus Christ, called the Book of Mormon IN the street contact. Every time, and making inspired questions in our contacts as well. Our investigators should know our message and our purpose from the beginning and the spirit WILL testify of our words when we have no fear to declare what we know right off the bat. President has also clarified rules that are taught in the mission manual about Pday; we will only get together as a district or zone or with other missionaries period every 6 weeks or so if Presidente gives us permission, to help us focus completely on the work. Pday is a day to prepare ourselves spiritually in order to be able to TEACH with power. It’s also a principle President Duncan taught us when he came. I love that President said at the end of our counsel that the Lord is hastening His work on BOTH sides of the veil. If He is hastening His work on the other side, what is it that He expects of us on THIS side? We need to gather families. Bringing others to the truth is the most important thing we could ever do. We are ALL missionaries. And the Lord needs a lot from us.

I thought it was interesting that I heard/read two more scriptures about the Lord answering prayers this week after the leaders counsel. I love 1 Peter 3:12: ¨For the eyes‍ of the Lord are‍ over the righteous, and his ears are open‍ unto their prayers¨ and Mormon 5:21: ¨the Lord will remember the prayers of the righteous.¨ When we are faithful, the Lord is aware of our prayers and HE ANSWERS THEM. I testify of this. We have felt hated and rejected and exhausted this week; we have felt the efforts of Satan trying to convince us to not testify of Joseph Smith and the LDM [latter day message?] specifically in contacts, but we are learning SO MUCH and Satan will never stop us from declaring what we know to be true. I am proud to be a missionary in Guatemala; I am proud of what I KNOW and WHO I represent. I testify that God restored His church and His gospel through His prophet, Joseph Smith. I testify that He has given us an additional testament of Jesus Christ because He loves us and He wants us to return to Him. I love being a missionary!!!! I love my Father and my Savior.

I hope all is well with all of you!! Continue sharing what you know and being examples of the believers. 🙂

All my love,

Hermana Marcheschi