Lessons from President Oaks and the joy of baptism

Hola Hola Hola Hola
  This week has been by far one of the most eventful weeks for Elder Cook and I. To start it all off we had exchanges from Thursday to Friday and then District council on Friday. Elder Montgomery and Elder Stratford are the other Elders in our district beside the ZL's but they do some weird exchange thing so that they have at least one of them in the other District council at the same time as ours. I went with Elder Montgomery he's a good elder and we both had a good time together. But the next day we had our mission conference with President Oaks and this has been one of the things I've been like dreaming about for a long time, meeting one of the apostles or members of the first presidency. So our day on Saturday went as follows, We woke up at about 4:30 in the morning to get ready to leave, then we drove down to the Sawtelle building and arrived at around 6:15 we got set up to take a picture at around 6:30 with president Oaks and then we all got to shake his hand as we filed into the Chapel. Let me say the spirit was so strong in that room that I remember as he was saying that he had to go to a temple appointment that I didn't want him to leave. He is so in tune with the spirit and he is really good about following the promptings of the spirit. When he got up he first said that he doesn't prepare any written talks when he speaks with missionaries and he listens to what the holy ghost tells him.
  One of the things that stood out to me that I think a lot of missionaries might struggle with is going home early. He said that for those of you who go on missions do not go home early. Obviously there are lots of reasons for going home early but the fact that you don't think you can finish your mission is not a reason to go home early. He said the short term pain that you will feel while on your mission is not worth the long term pain that you will feel from not finishing your mission. He related with his own experience of not serving a mission and said that something just hasn't quite clicked with him and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He said that he lacks that knowledge that can only be learned while on a mission. So if your thinking about serving a mission do it and when you do start serving stick it our till the end.
  The other huge event that happened was Bernadino our friend of the church was baptized on sunday. It was probably one of the most spiritual baptisms of all time. It has been a 2 year process with him and the amount of Joy that he felt when he was baptized was amazing you could feel the spirit so strongly. I was so excited for him and his family who are not members but hopefully he can show them that example and they can become married in the temple thats our goal with Bernadino right now. But he is so excited thanks for all the prayers that have been sent his way. I hope that everyone has a good week, Les quiero mucho!!
Elder Gibbons