Temple Conference & Christmas Devotional

The mission is so amazing and it is such a great time of the year to be doing the Lord's work. We have an amazing investigator named Manuel. He is the brother of a recent convert. He is progressing so much and has gained an amazing testimony of this gospel. We are really excited and are helping him prepare for baptism on Dec 28. We are also making preparations for him to receive the Priesthood and go to the temple the following weeks. He even came to the ward activity on Saturday when his family couldn't make it. He is practically already a member. He told us Sunday: Thank you so  much for helping me with all of this. It was a really tender moment and I am so grateful for the opportunities I have ever day to bring Heavenly Father's children back to Him.

We got to go to the temple with a lot of missionaries and our Mission President and his wife last week. The Sacramento Temple is really beautiful. Before we went in we had a Christmas program and had the nativity story and music and it was just so fun. Our Mission President and his wife are the most loving and Christ-like people I know and I love being with them. They have 260 missionaries but they remember everyone's name and care about each of us. I am so thankful for them.

Other than that we have just been crazy busy lately! We have more investigators (people we are teaching) than we know what to do with. The Lord guides us daily to people that need to hear the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

Here is a picture of us at the Temple Conference! 

I wish you all a Merry Christmas and I encourage you to consider what gift you will give your Savior this Christmas, knowing He paid for your gift, the gift of your salvation, with His life. Our Prophet, Thomas S. Monson, in the Christmas Devotional (can be watched here) lets us know that all He wants is our tender hearts.

Love,

Hermana Hurley 

Short, sweet, and to the point.

No time! great week! Love you all! Thanks for reading! Your Heavenly Father loves you!

Love

Hermana Hurley

Backing up a little...

A random guy I found at the CCM cafeteria who is my straight up twin!

My district in front of the CCM with one of our teachers

My zone in the MTC

So one day we are in our classroom and a bird flies into the window and falls to the ground, dazed.... so it was our pet for a while. Another day we found a random cat! It somehow made it passed CCM security. :)

So my companion and I have started a tradition of selfie sundays :) enjoy

We had a very powerful weekend! Our baptism went great! The boys, named Manuel and Jesus, that were baptized are 9 and 10 years old and they were so happy at the baptism, they were crying. We had two investigators attend the baptism as well! So that was fantastic. 

Then Fast Sunday yesterday was amazing. First of all, it was testimony meeting. And the boys that got baptized the night before were confirmed with the Holy Ghost during Sacrament meeting. They really wanted to sit on the stand for the meeting and they were allowed to do so and were shockingly reverent. I decided to give my testimony and while I was up there I wanted to encourage Manuel and Jesus to share their testimonies, because I know they are very strong. Well I had barely made it up the steps when manuel called out to me "Sister Hurley!" so i walked over and sat down next to him. He said "Now that i am a member, do you think it would be ok if I gave my testimony about how I feel?" I said of course. He gave a beautiful testimony about how happy he was to be baptized and have the Holy Ghost. He cried. I cried. Then I gave mine. It was a very uplifting meeting. Another thing that made it a great day was that we had a special Fast.

 We have a goal as a mission called White Christmas. The goal is for every companionship to have a baptism in the month of December! One thing we did to work towards this goals was we had a ward fast for the missionary work and we had barely started the fast when the miracles started flowing! The Elders found a "drop book" for our area and gave it to us yesterday. That means all the past missionaries that have taught people in Spanish at one point in the past but ended up "dropping" them because they were too busy, or never home, or not ready to maker further commitments, put their names and addresses in this book! So now we have stacks of Spanish speakers that have met with the missionaries before and their addresses! We know through that we can find at least one person that is ready to be baptized in December! Also, one of our investigators that has been promising to come to church for weeks came to church yesterday! He had a great experience! And many people he had met at the baptism the night before greeted him, which made him feel more welcome.

 And finally, last night we went to a house to drop an investigator. We thought she wasn't interested in our message because she had stood us up for an appointment and hadn't been answering our calls. But instead of dropping her, we ended up having a fantastic lesson with their whole family and adding her husband as a new investigator! I am so grateful for the power of fasting and that I know that God provides us with miracles every time we ask.

this is a picture of some of the things Manuel has given me to hang on my fridge. He says I look like cinderella so he made me a book called Hurlyrella on the Mission. It is great. My companion is my fairy godmother and I dance with my prince at the ball (hopefully that is after the mission (: ) 

also, I am teaching Jesus to play the piano. he has so much talent and play by ear, so I am teaching him to read music. He is a very good student.

this is us at the baptism!