20 Mar 2017

This has been a really good week! I got news that someone I was teaching back in IF is preparing for baptism! We also have a lot of new potential investigators. So it’s been a pretty good week!

Monday- Pretty usual did all our weekly prep and then we went to one of the bishop’s family home evenings. Mostly so we could meet the Bishop, he has been out of town since I came to the area.

Tuesday- we had an unexpected exchange. We had them planned for next week but the District Leader had to move them up a week so they happened without a lot of notice. I lead out the area with Elder Creel. He's got a really good heart, and has a funny guy. But the exchange went pretty well it was mostly just going around and setting up some appointments and getting some of the fellowshippers to follow up with a couple of our investigators. We had a lesson with the Falkners, they are a family that is returning to activity and we mostly just talked to the parents. She expressed some concern for some of her kids spiritually. So we talked about faith, how our faith is to go forth and do good then trust that the Lord has a plan and he will work things together.

Wednesday- was a pretty slow day; things just didn’t quite pan out.

Thursday- We had a first for me, just something I wouldn’t have expected. But we have people from the wards come out with us each night, and a priest was signed up to give us a ride. So we went to meet him and we saw like three people in the car. He brought two friends that weren't members... So we were going to correlate with one of the relief society presidents but we cancelled that and just tried to find any place we could share a message. So we taught a less active member and then just a couple of members from the ward. The Lesson with the members didn’t start of directed at them but the two friends started asking some questions, so the lesson turned towards them. One of them is coming to church this next week and we are hoping to teach him, the other is going to be taught by the zone leaders. It was a really good night and it was an awesome blessing.

Friday- We had district meeting about using the book of Mormon in teaching. It really is the most important tool of conversion. Of course for conversion to happen the spirit needs to testify of something, but when the spirit testifies of the book of Mormon then, everything else just falls into place. That’s why as missionaries follow up is a big thing for us, because our words can only spark the spirit, but when people are reading the book of Mormon and know its truth, then they become converted to the gospel and not to the missionary. So if you are trying to help others into the gospel the biggest thing you can do is to help them read and pray about the book of Mormon.

Saturday- not much happened, but on our way home that night we rounded a corner and we saw this car in the middle of the road a little ways down. Elder Holmes turned on his brights, then was like oh I probably shouldn’t and turned them back off, then while the car was still in the middle of the road all its lights just shut off. The car just vanished like we kept going down the road but it wasn't anywhere. It was weird.

Sunday- Sundays are usually the same for us we got to church from like 8:30 to 4:00 have dinner then we had Stake correlation meeting for basically the rest of the night.

Hope you all have a good week

love ya

13 Mar 2017

Hey everybody!

This week has been good but nothing too exciting to report.

Something that just stood out to me this week as I was studying was Nephi in 2 Nephi Chapter 4. He asks the Lord that he may "shake at the appearance of sin." I thought about why he chose that wording. As I thought obviously to shake means to fear it but what was it that he feared. So to summarize the thought, Nephi was scared of sin its self but to commit sin, He wanted to be afraid of the Idea of committing sin because he knew that sin causes in some degree or another a separation from the spirit. Also him having an understanding that our purpose in life is to become like our savior, sin in any degree holds us back from being like Christ and having a fullness of joy. Nephi didn’t want to just be less sinful than Laman and Lemuel; he wanted to be exactly like Christ is. At least personally I've found times that I justify action by looking at others and thinking well im doing better than them. But that shouldn't be the case. I thought about when Christ says become like a child, and I thought about how a child can take even the smallest thing and feel the most guilt about it. Like they could take an extra cookie from the cookie jar and if they get caught they think mom and dad are going to kill them or banish them from the house forever. So I think also as we live through life, we become exposed to more serious transgressions and become a bit jaded towards guilt of smaller things that are still wrong. So to finally summarize this, we shouldn’t, judge how we are doing based off of others, expectations of the world or that we aren't as bad as we use to be. These are things Satan puts in our minds to block our spiritual progression. I'm not saying you need to beat yourself up every day because you weren't perfect, but we should evaluate ourselves frequently and think of ways that we can become more like Christ, and seek to not justify any wrong doing. We should indeed fear the inhibition that comes with giving in to temptation. I hope that this all made sense and I say this in the name of Jesus Christ.

Scripture reference 2 Nephi 4:31

6 Mar 2017

Hey everybody

Monday- In the evening we had a visit with the Gonzales Family and it was pretty good. The wife was baptized not too long ago and the husband’s interest in the church is not too great, but they are a really nice family. They have a couple of children and their youngest boy is hilarious. Half way through the visit he walks out and his mom goes "sugar, are you wearing different pants?" and the boy goes "Well Duhhhh, I peed my pants" Then he got in I fight with an imaginary person and he was getting beat up like he was throwing himself around, and we asked why don’t you fight back. His response was well I can’t hit a girl! So at least he's chivalrous.

Tuesday- Pretty slow day it was tough to catch anyone. We had interviews with president but that was about it.

Wednesday- we had exchanges so I went with Elder Saydee to the ysa area. We had a pretty good day. We shared the plan of salvation with a family. The Kids were pretty smart and there was good spirit about the lesson. Then we caught this guy named Moses and he has been recovering addictions, and we had tabbed a Book of Mormon for him to read, to help him out whenever he is temped. Hopefully he will use it.

Thursday- Between weekly planning and a couple of other things we had to prepare we were pretty wrapped up in paperwork stuff today. We did have a lesson though with the Hansen's and it’s going well with them. The parents are both members and are a little less active but mom is coming around a lot and so are the kids. The youngest son sparked it he wants to be baptized to watch the temple dedication and hopefully this will help the parents have the drive to make it to the temple.

Friday- we had zone training and that was pretty awesome. I took some notes but I don’t have them on me. I just remember Sister Clark had a training on seeing potential, and she couldn't find the picture she wanted so she tried to draw a guy painting a bird while looking at an egg. When I saw it I thought it was a bird flying into a window, but the trainings were really good.

Saturday- We helped fill sandbags; they are expecting a lot of flooding and are getting prepared for it so we spent about 4 hours helping fill sand bags. It was pretty fun and there were a lot of people there.

Sunday was good! The testimony meetings didn’t have any gaps it was great, we had ward council. We were in meetings until dinner then after dinner we talked to Bishop Hawker about some people and things are looking really good!

Hope you all have an awesome week!

Love you guys