Elder Andrew Peña:

April 19, 2001...Last update!

Thank you everyone for your emails! I loved them and they are helping! This last week was great! My last full week on my mission we were able to teach a lot of people and to see Quincey Williams be baptized, so I guess you could say we ended with a BANG!! That was awesome! And it was a miracle! The members here are amazing! I have been able to grow a friendship with them and it's going to be hard to leave! Everyone says, how do you feel about going home?!..haha I have no idea. To everyone that asks me that question my response is I don't know, I have mixed feelings. Now let me explain..... families are the greatest thing that we have and I feel I have been able to grow a special appreciation of my family since I have been gone and that I am very grateful. However there have been so many amazing experiences that I have seen and witnessed on my mission! I can't believe that things I never knew before have been the things that I have grown to love and even through this service have seen so many lives blessed because of the teachings from the gospel of Jesus Christ and I am a witness to it and will ever be grateful! But I know it is not an end but a new chapter of life which is exciting! I can't believe it has been two years! It goes by fast! On April 16th this week I went to Chile's with me and my companion and Elder Cook and his companion and with Sister Alexandrina Borges who is one of the recent converts that was baptized that we found and taught. This week we also were able to finish with 3 non member church tours! That was great! I am running out of things to say so I will end with my testimony....... I know that God lives, I know that he has prepared for us something that is bigger than we can now understand and we are all apart of it and he has prepared a way for us to be happy and successful. I know that we will be successful through obedience to the gospel of Jesus Christ and by remaining faithful to the covenants we have made! Through our faith we will see changes in our lives and others and we will only want more of that happiness in our lives. I know because he loves us he called a prophet in these latter days and as we heed to the warnings that come from him! We will find guidance, direction, peace, comfort and answers to our problems in our day and for our time as families and individuals! I love our Savior, He has willingly laid down his life for us and because he did he understands perfectly our heartaches, our trials, our pains, our afflictions, our burdens and if we come unto him, through his teaching by obedience and diligently seeking him we will find that peace and answers which we search for daily! I know he atoned for our sins and loves us all! I especially know that He, Jesus Christ lives today and He can and will be a part of our lives if we will allow him to come in! We do not have to be anyone special. He has given us all the gift of the Holy Ghost for more guidance. We will all feel imperfect, that is because we all are! But it is through the decisions that we make that will give us more happiness and peace! We will choose our own salvation, we will choose our own happiness, we will choose liberty and eternal life through Jesus Christ, or we will choose captivity through the devil. My prayer for myself and us all is that we may be faithful to those promises we have made and learn to better understand them so that we may choose the better decisions in our lives! I love all of you and thank all of you for you support and for your love! I will see you in a couple of days!:) Love, Elder Peña