Welcome everyone to the new month of April! The weather has
been very nice here in the city of Upland, California.
Well, first things first, the life-size replica of Moses' Tabernacle
finished on Wednesday in Chino Hills. It was a unique experience to have helped
with it, but now that it's over the stress from it is no longer on our
shoulders, so that's really nice. While we were there though I got to see a lot
of members that I knew and became close with in my first area of the Walnut
Park Ward in Chino, and also some members from the Phelan Ward up in the high
desert. Pictures of Moses' Tabernacle will be attached.
On Thursday Elder Hirst and I got to go on exchanges with
the assistants in Rancho Cucamonga. I was with Elder Wilhelm for the exchange,
he's a convert from Florida (I love meeting convert missionaries out here, I am
always so happy for their decision that they made to accept Christ's Gospel,
and then choose to serve him for 18 months to 2 years!). He is such a great
missionary, and I learned so much from him! We each
set a personal goal for the day to talk to everyone, and, well, we did our best
and it was amazing to see how the Lord put people in our path to talk to at a
time of day when normally there aren't people outside. We just both worked
together to talk to as many people as we could, it was awesome. I just felt so
good about everything.
For the first half of the week we were kept busy
with Moses' Tabernacle, so we didn't have much proselyting time those
days. Elder Hirst and I are really pumped for the new Easter Initiative
that came out on Friday, we have been trying to show it to every member that we
see. We passed out almost all our cards by Saturday evening.
I'm grateful for general conference, I really enjoyed it. Every time I watch General Conference it's like a refresher to me, reminding me that that this really is Christ's true church. I could expound a lot on conference and how good it was, but I don't have that time right now haha. I was moved by some powerful statements that were made during each session. I had a lot of thoughts from the Holy Ghost as to how I can be a better missionary, and overall a more Christlike person. To me there was a lot of emphasis of the Plan of Salvation, and especially focusing on Jesus Christ, during the talks that were given. My testimony of modern-day prophets has greatly increased since watching conference. I know President Thomas S. Monson is indeed a prophet that has been called of God. We will be blessed and protected as we heed to his counsel and the counsel of the leaders of the Church.
Other than that, we've just been doing our regular
proselyting stuff. I've been trying to listen more to the Spirit recently, and
it's hard, but with diligent effort we can condition ourselves to be more
sensitive to the Spirit. Daily prayer and scripture study are some the
greatest tools we have been given to be able to listen to the Spirit and to
receive personal revelation.
Well, I gotta go now, but I love you all and hope you have a
wonderful week!
Elder Ruiz
A replica of the Ark of the Covenant, located in the Holy of Holies. And
no, our faces did not melt off like in Indiana Jones haha.
Panorama of Moses' Tabernacle within the Outer Courtyard.
Included in the Outer Courtyard is the alter of sacrifce (big box on the
right), and the laver (located behind the group in the picture, it's like a
water pot). The colored tapestry on the right side is the only entrance into
the tabernacle, called the East Gate. There is a lot of symbolism in the
tabernacle, and a lot of similiarities between ordinances found in the gospel,
and also temple ordinances. Really cool! To learn more about Moses' Tabernace,
here is a link to a video that we showed to the tour groups: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDaGNz3eA6c
And
for more information:
A picture of the Holy
Place, the first room in the tabernacle.
Elder Wilhelm and I
on exchanges!
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