Letter from Curtis, July 25, 2011

Dear Family,

A hard week.  We have been working to try to get new investigators, but with little result.  We have a couple ideas for this week that we hope will work out.  We're offering to teach people how to hold a family home evening.  We're not sure exactly how it will work out, but we have high hopes for the week. 

We've been seeing great miracles this week.  We were able to give a blessing of healing to a woman who has had back problems for the last ten years.  We saw her this morning and she has been healed completely.  We also were blessed to give an investigator a blessing and to dedicate her home.  She had felt that there were evil spirits in her house.  I'm not sure that there were, but the Power of a Priesthood blessing gave her a great calm and she hasn't felt the great fear she had felt before since.  The Lord has truly been using us to do His work.  I feel really humbled by these two experiences.

Angie got baptized!  It was a lovely baptismal service.  The first counselor baptized her and the first counselor confirmed her yesterday.  It is always a blessing to be part of a baptism.

My companion and I are getting along very well.  I learned that I know a lot more about teaching the gospel now than I did when I started my mission.  I'm excited to be able to teach when I get back.

We're a little low on time because the letter I wrote to President Chávez was a little longer and I want to write a few individual emails.  But I am happy and blessed.

This letter is brought to you by the hymn For the Strength of the Hills

1. For the strength of the hills we bless thee,
Our God, our fathers’ God;
Thou hast made thy children mighty
By the touch of the mountain sod.
Thou hast led thy chosen Israel
To freedom’s last abode;

For the strength of the hills we bless thee,
Our God, our fathers’ God.

2. At the hands of foul oppressors
We’ve borne and suffered long;
Thou hast been our help in weakness,
And thy pow’r hath made us strong.
Amid ruthless foes outnumbered
In weariness we trod;

For the strength of the hills we bless thee,
Our God, our fathers’ God.

3. Thou hast led us here in safety
Where the mountain bulwark stands
As the guardian of the loved ones
Thou hast brought from many lands.
For the rock and for the river,
The valley’s fertile sod,

For the strength of the hills we bless thee,
Our God, our fathers’ God.

4. We are watchers of a beacon
Whose light must never die;
We are guardians of an altar
’Midst the silence of the sky.
Here the rocks yield founts of courage,
Struck forth as by thy rod;

For the strength of the hills we bless thee,
Our God, our fathers’ God.

God has been in my life so much.  He has been a guardian of my loved ones.  He has led me from place to place, school to school, and area to area in safety.  I am a watcher of the Beacon of Truth and the Guardian of he Altar of the Lord.  In the silence of the heavens I have heard this voice so often "I Am, and you are my Son."  I know God lives and I praise Him.  I depend entirely upon Him.  I know that He loves me.  I know that I must try my whole life to serve my God and my Fathers' God.  Jesus is my Savior.  I am His missionary for my whole life, and perhaps even after.

With All My Love,
Élder Sudbury