Brad Wilcox + PRAYER

Buenos diiiias everyone!! This week I had one of the most spiritual experiences of my mission so far!

We had another leadership conference on Wednesday, and several members of the seventy came to speak to us. I thought it was gonna be a receive instruction to bring back to the rest of the mission type thing. But instead it was just spiritual upliftment for us. And it was AMAZING.

Elder Brad R. Wilcox was one of the speakers. We were so excited about it and he didn't disappoint. He speaks Spanish, which I didn't know. Apparently he served his mission in Santiago, Chile (wrong Santiago), and he's still got the Spanish. It was really cool to me that he didn't lose any of his Brad Wilcox personality and zest even though he was speaking another language. He told us all about the twelve tribes of Israel and what it means to have the birthright, or double portion. He explained how Joseph ended up with the birthright because Rueben broke the law of chastity, and Joseph split his double portion between his two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh. The job of the person with the birthright is to stay on their father's land and take care of the family. All of the other sons take their inheritance and leave, but not the one with the birthright. That's why Ephraim and Manasseh have the special assignment to gather Israel. Elder Wilcox explained how they have different roles but work together. Members of Ephraim are temporal kingdom builders, and members of Manasseh are spiritual kingdom builders. And together, they are gathering Israel. Elder Wilcox had my comp and I stand up because we were the only companionship in the room that has one Ephraim and one Manasseh, so we're a "perfect painting" of the two tribes working together to gather Israel.

Sorry if that was a little confusing. I learned a lot about the gathering of Israel, but ya tú sabes, Brad Wilcox said it a lot better than me.

Elder Mark L. Pace recommended saying more kneeling prayers with the people we are teaching, really building up to the prayer as the climax of the lesson, the big moment where they feel the Spirit the strongest.

And that's where the reason this week was so amazing comes in. We put that into practice and had some insane experiences.

That same day of MLC, we had a lesson with a family we've been trying so hard with and they have been progressing really slowly but they're also so close. The mom and the daughter want to get baptized, but the mom really wants to do things unitedly with her husband and he won't commit. We really wanted to give them a spiritual experience they can't forget to help them make the decision.

At the end of a great discussion on baptism, we asked them if we could kneel together to end the lesson. Following Elder Pace's advice, the plan was that one of us would say a very simple prayer, then the head of the family would also say a prayer and we would all stay kneeling for a moment so everyone could reflect on what they were feeling.

I said a very simple prayer just asking God to please help this family know the truth. Then I kept my eyes closed and head bowed waiting for Victor to say a prayer. Afterwards my comp told me that she opened her eyes and made eye contact with Victor and nodded at him to pray, but he shook his head. Then he looked at me and noticed that I was praying silently and started doing the same. All five of us in that room were just silently praying. And the Spirit was so insanely strong. I don't know if I've ever felt the Spirit so strongly before. The room was thick with it. The peace permeated deep into our hearts. After several minutes of everyone praying their own prayers, Victor and Yulissa just kind of opened their eyes at the same time and we talked briefly about the power we all felt in the room, then we left so they could continue meditating on it.

And the next day, the exact same thing happened! I was on an exchange in my area and we went to teach this guy named Radames. It was our first lesson with him and we were talking about prophets and he interrupted us and asked how he could congregate in our church. That led to a discussion on baptism and we put him on date then worked it back into the restoration and finished the lesson. And at the end we invited him to kneel with us and pray. I'm not sure if I'm just doing a bad job at explaining that the plan is that we pray then they pray out loud, but the exact same thing happened where I said a simple prayer asking God to confirm to Radames that his decision to be baptized was right, then Radames started praying silently right after. 

Guys, the power of prayer is so real. It brings the Spirit. Praying personally, praying as a family, praying with people you have only spoken with a few times. If the intention in your heart is to talk to God, He talks back. And the peace He speaks with is undescribable. It is literally out of this world. It is the most filling, completing feeling you can experience. And it's possible to feel it consistently.

I invite you guys to make prayer a priority this week. Kneel. Speak out loud. Don't get up right away and forget you were just talking to your Creator and Father. Stay on the ground for a minute and notice how you feel. It is God's great desire to speak with His children, and if you feel like there's a lack of that communication in your life, you can be pretty positive that it's not God who's slacking on His part.

Pray. And you will feel the Spirit.

In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Hermana Cazier

Also sorry, I don't know why but I'm having some serious problems with getting the pictures to send. So sorry if you end up with two of this email in your inbox at some point cuz I tried to send one with pics and it didn't work.

(June's pictures never showed up, but she did send some to us on What's App, so I'll include those)