Happy Presidents Day / Valentines Day

                                                                                           Feb 15, 2016

Hola Everyone,

       Hope everyone enjoyed the holidays. I did, despite not having a
Valentines yesterday, I did get to hear from one of the Seventies at
stake conference, Elder Stacey. He was such an interesting man, so
bold, so funny, so different. The rest of the week went alright, I'm
going to be spending my third transfer, another 7 weeks (we have an
extra week put on this transfer to match up with the MTCs), here in
this Ward but we have a two new investigators, Jesus (our fourth
person named Jesus yet)and Armando. A family that is showing promise
is the Tinocos, Jose in a less active member who wants his family to
get baptized and Anna is the mother who is showing a lot of interest
in the church. They have two kids one is 9 and other is about to turn
8 so we could be having 3 baptisms really soon.

        I'd just like to share a story that Elder Stacey shared with
everyone in the conference. He used to work in as the director for a
hospital back before the 2000s and there was a incident in Colorado
how there was young man named Matthew Shepard who was almost beaten
death for being a gay man. He was admitted into the hospital and Elder
Stacey and his staff watched over him until he passed away in the
hospital only weeks later. An historian from Colorado came over to
Elder Stacey to record this event in Colorado's history. And over
time, Elder Stacey really came to love and care for the Shepard
family. So during the interview, the historian asked if Elder Stacey
was a Mormon, to which he answered yes. Then the historian how he
could have such kind feelings and mourning for this boy considering
what the church preaches. To that he said he said my church teaches
about Jesus Christ and loving all people, despite who they are or what
they do.

         I loved that story so much, because it drives home to me the center of
the message all missionaries teach, Jesus Christ and his teaching love
one another. Elder Stacey made the point that Jesus never ever
approved of the sin and of course he despises sin but he did love the
sinner.

         I hope you guys will have a good week this week.

                                                                               Love, Elder Agre