Temple Days-Lots of Family History Accomplished

This is Ben's letter from March 16, 2015

Hola Familia,

Good to hear that everyone is doing so well. Everything is doing well here in Maroñas. This week we got to go to the temple as a Zone. We had interviews with President Cook and some workshops by the assistants. It was an awesome experience. Obviously going to the temple is something we get to do every day, so it was even more special. 

I got to do baptisms and confirmations for 5 family members and two sisters were able to do from baptism to endowment for two family names. Everyone else in the zone was either able to bring their own family names or was able to do family names for other missionaries. There was a wonderful spirit that day. It was amazing to "re-live" every covenant we've made from baptism to endowment.

This month for the ward mission activity, we went to the temple with the recent converts and the members that we've activated. We were able to go with 4 recent converts and with 3 less active families we've been working with. We were in the temple for about 2 hours and were able to do lots of family names (from the family history we'd been doing with them. =) 

I was the recorder in the confirmation room. We got a lot of names in the temple and over 20 were names from Indiana, and like 40 from the Netherlands (the two places where we have quite a few ancestors), so that was really cool. It was a great activity and even cooler because we got permission to enter in the temple with them. (The established standard in the mission is that you can only go to the temple when we have conferences where the zone is planned to go, or when you are accompanying a convert to get their endowment or to be sealed).

I got to go to Libia (my first area) on an interchange and got to 

visit my two converts there. One is going through a hard time and the other is doing fine. It was super awesome to see them. I hope they can both continue strong. They both have testimonies and know that the church is true, but some of the trials they've gone through have been pretty difficult.

The week has been amazing. We're having a lot of blessing by way of finding less-active members that are wanting to progress and return to the church. It's also been a wonderful opportunity to find new people to teach. I'm really enjoying my time here with Elder Gutiérrez. We're working really well together. Changes are coming up next week. I will probably be writing on Tuesday.

Love you all lots!

Élder Benjamin Taylor