The Lost Sheep

Well let me just say 

I Love and miss all of you

Yesterday was the BEST day of the year

You guys all looked so AWESOME

For those of you who don’t know yesterday I talked with the best family in the whole world. 

That’s right, my awesome crazy hard to understand, who’s who’s family. 

That was the best moment of the year by far. One hour passed by wayyyy to fast. 

This week was AWESOME. 

Maria Hernandez and her granddaughter are getting ready for their baptism and they are super excited. They invited friends to church and all the other activities that we do. Maria is 54 years old and Laura is 14. The other day we knocked on the door to find Maria studying the Liahona, (Ensign), with her Bible and Book of Mormon open on the table with a pen and paper writing everything down. She’s super awesome and loves the gospel. 

Everyday we leave to go tracking with Gustavo Bentancourt, he is 24 years old and was a less active member of the church. He is now coming back and is with us everyday. He is awesome. 

Sometimes the economic situations of the people you learn to love aren’t the best and it hurts to know that you can’t do anything to help them with their immediate needs. Gustavo and his family are in a VERY tough spot right now, not one person in the house can find work. The other day we had family home evening with them, we showed them how to make pancakes. We realized that it was late and we needed to head off to our apartment and fast. We left the pancake batter there in the rush and told them to keep it without thinking about it again. I called Gustavo’s Mom 2 days later to set up an appointment when she started to cry and said thank you so much for the pancake batter, she said, “If we wouldn’t have had that I don’t know how we would have been able to get through the day it was the only food that we had in the house”. That phone call honestly shook me up. Something as simple as hurriedly leaving a packet of pancake batter left a struggling mother in tears of gratitude.

That experience left me thinking a lot about, 

What is charity?

In the scriptures the word charity is used to talk about the brotherly love that we should share one for another as children of God. 

2 Nephi 26:30

30 Behold, the Lord hath forbidden this thing; wherefore, the Lord God hath given a commandment that all men should have charity, which charity is love. And except they should have charity they are nothing. Wherefore, if they should have charity they would not suffer the laborer in Zion to perish.

What is the greatest form of love that we can show our heavenly brothers and sisters here in this life? The sons of an ancient prophet Mosiah knew exactly what is the most precious form of love that we can show our brothers.

Mosiah 28:3

3 Now they were desirous that salvation should be declared to every creature, for they could not bear that any human soul should perish; yea, even the very thoughts that any soul should endure endless torment did cause them to quake and tremble.

This all leads me to my challenge for the week.

Show scriptural charity to a friend or someone you know.

Have a family home evening well planned with an awesome super fun, yet quick game. And of course invite the dudes with the nametag. That’s right the Elders are pretty cool if you didn’t know. 

I testify that if you do this you will feel amazing love for those you know, especially if the message that you share touches their heart. When the scriptures talks about the lost sheep, the one sheep in a ¨fold¨ of a 100, most think that it is someone who already knew the gospel that fell astray. It can be true like that or even more true that for every 100 people that we know that there is someone waiting. Someone who needs this message, who is prepared to listen to the message.

There is that one person waiting in YOUR pastures. 

Will you go out to find him/her?

Love

Elder Rawly Lyle