The Blessing of Living Prophets!

January 30, 2017

Dear Mom and Dad and my wonderful family and friends!

Wow! I can’t believe the Cedar City temple is almost finished. We will definitely have to plan a temple trip!  

Mom and dad it is so awesome to hear that Josh is coming to church regularly.  I know the missionaries who are teaching him are just overjoyed to have you be his friends.  Members are so key in missionary work and helping investigators feel a part of this great family of the Lord.

And wow, Sarah has an even grander store in her house.  I am sending a special hug your way Sarah and Mary!  

This week has been so amazing, and I have gained a firm testimony of living Prophets and Apostles.

Wednesday, we had a worldwide conference with the missionary board which consists of Elder Oaks, Elder Bednar, Elder Nielson, and other General Authorities.  We received some powerful instrucción. The conference was similar to a big question and answer session where the members of the board had prayerfully selected questions to address that missionaries all over the world had.

One principle I learned was the importance of the baptism and how the Doctrine of Christ is all interconnected.  When we have faith in Jesus Christ, we want to follow him and desire to become like him.  This desire helps us to seek forgiveness of our sins and repent, but in order to become completely clean we need to be baptized and receive the holy spirit.  When we are baptized and receive the holy spirit we become completely clean.  But we all know we still make mistakes after baptism and sin, but through the atonement of Jesus Christ and by taking the sacrament weekly, we renew our baptismal covenants and we become clean once again.  The apostles explained this process of faith in Jesus Christ and repenting of our sins and becoming clean again by taking the sacrament and renewing our promise to God to keep His commandments.  This is how we can endure to the end and overcome every trial and challenge in this life and become like our Savior, Jesus Christ.  It was so amazing to see that when Elder Salas and I taught with this understanding and not just to teach the lecciones that the spirit was so strong in our lessons this week.  

In one lesson in particular with the Suares Family, we taught them in this way and asked do you want to become clean of all your sins and spots or manches de este mundo.  They said yes.  It was wonderful to see that they had this desire and faith to follow Jesus Christ. In this moment I invited them to follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized on February 29.  They accepted!  

But one funny part of the story is they asked, “Wait February 29 is leap day.”  Oops..  Elder Salas and I thought that at the end of the month of February would be a great baptismal date, but we forgot February only has 28 days.  This sure was a funny moment and we fixed our baptismal date to March 4.

Also, in the missionary council they made changes to our schedule and now we don’t have specific times to study, but now we have specific amounts of time we need to study.  This change was huge.  Instead of waking up in the morning and having personal study at 8 am and companionship study at 9 am, we now have a time frame between 6:30 and 10 to get ready exercise and plan for 30 minutes and then study for one hour in personal study and then we can use our agency when we will study in the day for companionship study and language study.

Elder Matheson & Elder Salas attending Saturday's Conference with Elder Quentin L. Cook

But the most amazing experience this week was getting to see, shake hands with, and hear an Apostle of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  On Saturday we had this conference with our mission and the Bolivia Santa Cruz North Mission.  There were about 500 missionaries in one chapel, and the spirit was so strong!!  

Elder Cook started the conference early so we could all shake his hand. During this conference he was so inspired and taught us specifically how we could serve the Lord better.

Elder Quentin L. Cook

I can’t even begin to describe the feeling of love that was in the room and the witness of the Spirit that Elder Cook is indeed an Apostle of the living Lord Jesus Christ, but the part I would like to share is his blessing that he gave to the missionaries and his sure testimony of Jesus Christ.

Missionaries at the Conference

To conclude his remarks, He gave us an apostolic blessing, "I invoke a blessing upon you that the time will come when you will know that your mission isn’t just blessing you but everybody you love.  It will bless your parents, your brothers and sisters, and your future wife.  I promise you the time will come when you will know how seminal this blessing is."  

Mom and dad! I love you so much, and I know this blessing will come to pass.  He also said that our family members who were having problems of health would receive blessings.  I know this blessing is for Sarah and she will be blessed with health, and also he said that any of our family members who are having trials of faith in the church would be blessed in their testimonies. This blessing brought me so much comfort and peace, and I know that Heavenly Father will bless you and help you through all your trials, and that my family will be safe and that this mission will shape me into the Son of God Heavenly Father wants me to become.  

To conclude his testimony,  Elder Cook said, “I know the Savior's voice, and I know His face.”

I bear testimony of this statement.  Elder Cook is an Apostle of the Lord, and President Monson is the living prophet of the Church who talks with our Savior and receives revelation for the whole church.  This Church is true!!

Mom and dad this week I sure felt the Savior’s love for me, and I promise to give my very best!

Love your Son,

Elder Matheson

P.S. Thank you for the sheet music of Oh mi Padre and the instructions for the piano book! I will definitely use them!!

More Conference Pictures