An Apostle-September 14, 2009

Dear family and friends,

What a day it has been! This morning we had the privilege and opportunity to hear from an Apostle of the Lord. Elder M. Russell Ballard of the 12 and Elder Costa of the Seventy came this morning and spoke to our mission and to the Fort Worth mission. There is nothing like hearing personally from an Apostle of Jesus Christ. I know Elder Ballard is a special witness of Jesus Christ. He is just like Peter, James, and John in the New Testament, Elder Ballard hold the same office and authority that these men held. I am truly grateful to have a Prophet and 12 Apostles on the earth today. And to know that the priesthood authority is back on the earth today! The Spirit was so strong in that meeting and just to be able to stand in Elder Ballard's presence was awe-inspiring. I wish I could find better words to describe it to y'all but I can't.

Elder Ballard talked about the great power that prayer can have in our lives. Never get so busy that you don't have time to pray. Pray gives us power and strength to be able to face anything that comes our way. So make time to pray every morning and every night to your Father in Heaven. Heavenly Father wants to hear from you and to help you but we have to take the time to humbly go to Him and turn to Him in prayer.

Elder Ballard also talked about daily scripture study. We need to read and study our scriptures everyday. We can't afford not to. "And I said unto them that is was the word of God; and whoso would hearken unto the word of God, and would hold fast unto it, they would never perish; neither could the temptations and the fiery darts of the adversary overpower them unto blindness, to lead them away to destruction." 1 Nephi 15:24 Scripture study gives us the power to overcome the powers of Satan. So please always remember to do this two things everyday and I promise you will be able to handle anything Satan will throw at you, your soul will never perish.

Also this week the Lord blessed us and helped us set another baptismal date. Sunday we started to teach Angel and George. They have been taught by missionaries before but needed to get married. They just had to wait for Angel's divorce to finally go all the way through. Well last Sunday they showed up to church for the first time in a while. This was my first time meeting them. They told us they are finally able to get married and George wants to start taking the missionary lessons again so he can get baptized. So yesterday we started teaching them. They are going to get married on Oct 5. Yesterday I felt prompted to bear testimony of eternal families and how do we get that. We talked about 3 things we can do to strenghten our families and that is family pray, family scripture study, and going to church. They want to be sealed in the temple and willing to take the steps to get there. George is going to be baptized on Oct 17. They both still struggle with smoking and so we have to help them overcome that too, but I know they will and one day they will make it to the temple and be sealed as a family for all time and eternity.

I love this work. And I love y'all. Hope you have a wonderful week.

Love,
Sister Keys