February 11, 2013 Hello, I am Elder Daybell This week was wonderful. In the book of Alma, there is a story that I really enjoy and see it played out still today. One of them has to do with the effects of pride. The people of Alma were beginning to lift up their heads in pride because of their circumstances. This was a direct result of them losing the faith they once had. The people stopped doing their family home evenings, family prayers, personal scripture study and family scripture study. They stopped paying full tithes, and started filling their lives with all manner of fine things that distracted them from doing what they were supposed to have been doing. Pretty soon they started to forget all that God had given them, and started to worship themselves. Every time they saw a result of their labor, they thought, "wow, look at what I have done! How great am I!!" whereas before, they thought, "Thank God for these blessings, look at what HE has done for me. How great is HE! etc.." As a result of this pride, the people began to do bad things that hindered and even stopped the progress of the church, because all who were observing them saw that they honored God, maybe with their lips, but their hearts were far from them. Basically, the investigators were convinced that the truth was not available in the church of the the people of Alma. Can you imagine the letters home and journal entries of those missionaries? Every time that they stopped to open their mouth and share the Gospel, the best refuting, cutting comeback a non-member could throw was basically the mention of any of those members. Once the Lord saw that they were ripe for a reminder of exactly whose hands they were in, an opposing army comes and threatens to destroy everyone. Alma, seeing that the people weren´t going to change, left the judgement seat, and assigned another to take his place so that he could go amongst his people with great power and authority and preach unto them those things that would awaken in them the memory of all their duties as covenant-making members of the church of Christ. I like how it says the behavior of these brethren was afflicting to Alma, but how it did not matter really because he was full of the Spirit, or the Comforter. Basically I just wanted to explain what we did this week. We have seen in our zone that there is quite a bit of pride, and a general lack of miracles and faith. That is mission wide, and is something we are trying to focus on as leaders in the mission. On Thursday and Friday, Elder Toledo and I went to 3 different companionships in our zone and had special interviews with them. In effect, we left the judgment seat and went in order to despertar en ellos la memoria de sus deberes. It was great and we had the Spirit with us as we tried to help some elders figure out what their problems were and how to fix them. I love the missionaries I serve. I know my companion does too, and thus it was relatively easy to say what needed to be said. We felt the Spirit confirming to us that we had done good after each particular interview and so I was happy. There is a lot at risk when missionaries lose faith or are discouraged. We saw that there is an army awaiting us every single day out in the streets and we felt that we were unprepared to meet it as a zone because we have been collectively not as diligent as we should have been. Thanks to the help and direction we recieved, we feel that now the elders are more prepared to take on all that the enemy throws at us. We are excited to see some miracles happen because we are just going to go out and make them happen. I will tell you about some next week. Also, another transfer has just flown by. Elder Toledo is going to Alvear, which is about 5-6 hours from Mendoza City. I am getting a new companion, and a new zone leader, Elder Moscoso from Peru. He is a very cool guy and super humble and we have always gotten a long great since we were in the same district in Godoy Cruz more than a year ago. Elder Kelley is traveling to Mendoza and then the US on Wednesday, so Elder Dowdle is once again my companion for a few days haha. well.... I don´t think I have anything else to say. I love you guys, Have a super great week. Elder DAYBELL pS pics didn´t load. Sorrrrrr