"Removing the Poison of an Unforgiving Spirit"

Monday June 15, 2015

Hello family!

This week was another great week. We are working hard and we are hoping to have a couple baptisms the next couple weeks! This last week was a pretty big service week. We had the opportunity to help lots of different people.

All of our investigators are progressing great. Rodrigo is going to be baptized this Saturday and then we have another investigator named Zuleyma the following week. We are really excited for the success we've been seeing and all of the awesome new people we are meeting.

We have another investigator who while we were teaching him, he told us he was having a hard time forgiving his father from what he did to him as a kid. I printed him out a talk from 1983 named "Removing the poison of an unforgiving spirit" by H. Burke Peterson. Its a talk that my dad showed me a while before I came out on my mission and me and my companion found it in Spanish and gave it to him. And that talk definitely touched his heart. He is talking to his dad again and he is continuing to progress. Although we may think that we don't have anyone whom we haven't forgiven, inside most of us still have unresolved grudges against others including myself. The part in it that touches me the most is when it talks about a polish father during world war II. It talks about how the Nazi solders lined up family: his wife, two daughters, and three sons against a wall and open fired on his family. He begged to die with them but they kept him alive. And that part of the story that strikes me the most, is that when observers noticed him, he seemed so peaceful and calm. But with further interrogation, they found out these horrible things that had happened to him. He chose from right then, to forgive those soldiers for these awful things that had happened. And wow what an example to me. At times in life, we chose to hold grudges against others but we never realize the damage it is doing to ourselves. Our savior was spat upon, mocked, beaten and also was scourged and crucified and while on the cross, he asked the father for the forgiveness of the roman soldiers who had crucified him. Jesus Christ is the greatest example of forgiveness and still continues to forgive us on conditions of repentance. Go to him in prayer for the strength to forgive others. I love my savior and thank him for the mercy he offers me and I look forward to the day when I may feel the prints in his hands and in his feet and wash his feet with my tears because of his eternal sacrifice. I love this gospel and I love my savior and redeemer, Jesus Christ.

Have a great week everyone.

Elder Del Toro