I Will Go and Do : Week 1: Charity - The Pure Love of Christ

Dear Family and Friends,

I LOVE the MTC and missionary life. I have never felt the presence of my Heavenly Father so much in my life. The church is so true, God loves all his children, and if we do all that we can to follow him we can become like him. I know this to be true and I hope to share this with every single person that I can in Boston. Thank you again for all the love and support I have received in the last week.

Wednesday: WOW, what can I say. The very first day on my mission was insane. Though so comforting and peaceful. There are angels at the front doors of the MTC, as soon as I walked through those doors any concerns or doubts that I had instantly vanished. The MTC is like being in the temple 24/7, the spirit is so amazing and I love it. My companion is Elder Tanner Evans from Orem, UT. We get along soooooo well! I feel like I've known him for such a long time and its only been a week.

Thursday: Day 2 as a missionary Elder Evans and I taught our first lesson! Our investigator is Vivian (who is actually our teacher), and even though it was to our teacher it felt so real. Our first lesson was amazing, the spirit was so strong and we invited her to read the Book of Mormon. Everyday at the MTC is slam packed with the spirit and studying. Also on Thursday I was made District leader. So basically I run the meetings, interview the Elders, and get the mail haha! I love my district so much and we all get along so well.

Friday: I have never felt the spirit more in my life than on Friday. Such an amazing day! Elder Stone, our Zone Leader, came randomly into our classroom and started to bear his testimony. He said he had a prompting to do so, he bore his testimony on the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I wish I could express to all of you how amazing this testimony was. He spoke about how even the son of God cried out saying "Father, Father, is there no other way?" Jesus Christ was betrayed by those he loved, beaten, spit upon, made fun of, had to carry his own cross, was nailed to the cross, and hung on the cross... A perfect man with no sins who dedicated his whole life to serving others. He did all of this because HE LOVES US! That is so so amazing to me. I wish all of you were there to hear this testimony because it truly changed my life. Later that same day, one of the sisters in my district asked if she could have a blessing, I was super excited to practice using my Priesthood. As I was giving her this blessing of comfort, she began to cry and I was overwhelmed with the spirit. I knew that God loved her so much and that he was proud of her and ALL of us at the MTC for serving him. Satan is constantly working on us here but he cannot win! Amazing day. I love this Gospel and I love being a missionary.

Saturday: I had my very first baptismal invitation today. As Elder Evans and I were teaching Vivian again I had the prompting to invite her to be baptized. The spirit was amazing and she said she would be baptized if she felt it was necessary. Soooo overall a success! Today we got to watch the fireworks from the Stadium of Fire. It was pretty fun even though we were standing in the parking lot, being a missionary is great!

Sunday: Turn outwards to Christ! Today we had lots of places to be and it was super busy, but it was a great first Sunday. At the end of the day, we watched a talk given by Elder Bednar. The message was to turn towards Christ. When we turn in, we let the natural man takeover. "Who cares how you feel!" is what he said, a mission is not about yourself. It's about serving others and helping others come unto Christ. It was a great message.

Monday: We taught our very first "real" investigators! Everyone go on lds.org and watch "From Gangster to Good Man", the man in that video is the actual guy we are teaching. His name is Bubba. He's super cool but also super super scary, he makes it super hard to teach him. Our first lesson with him he literally talked for the whole 25 minutes about gangbanging in Oceanside, CA. He's been through some really hard stuff and hopefully we can get him to trust us. Pray for us! Our other investigator is Yui, she is from Japan and has no religious background. She is super, super sweet and she accepted our invitations to go to church and to pray to God. Hopefully all goes well.

Thank you again for all the support. I love you all and I love this church. I know there are people being prepared for me in Massachusetts right now. I invite you all to strengthen your relationships with Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father. Pray to him as if he is your best friend (because he is) and as if he is in the room, Love you all.

Elder Gutierrez