July 15, 2013

Hey Everybody!!!

     Well, I did write you guys last week, but our emails didn't send for some reason?? It was kind of a bummer, but oh well! I will just have to write an even better one today.

     This week has been such a great week! So to start off the week, we went to the Near's home for dinner and family home evening. And of course sister Near invited two non members to come! So that was really great. We didn't get to set up an appointment to teach them, but hopefully with time we will be able to teach them. The Nears are going to keep fellow-shipping them.

    Tuesday was such a great day! So the Nears, once again, have a family of 5 that they have been friends with forever who have agreed to take the missionary lessons. Well, everybody but their Dad. Hopefully he will come around soon. And the craziest part, is that the mom is a member, but just forgot that she was baptized when she was 16. She basically has been inactive since then so for like 20 years probably? Anyway, she has three kids, Will 15, Sara 13, and Laura 12. And all three of them really enjoyed the Restoration, and committed to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. They are so solid! I have no doubt that they will be baptized! Such a great family; very humble and ready for the gospel in their lives. Such a blessing from the Lord. The only sad part is they are going on vacation and won't be back until the 29th, but when they get back, we will work hard to help them become converted!

    And Tuesday night was great as well! So we had set up a church tour for Tina (an Investigator), for earlier in the day but she didn't show up and setting up a church tour takes a little bit of time. We basically just set up a bunch of pictures around the church and teach the restoration. It is very powerful. So we didn't want to take it down after she didn't show up. So we left it up and were hoping and praying that we could teach someone it. So for dinner we were eating with a wonderful member, and her son who used to be a member, But he quit coming like 50 years ago I think. During dinner we asked if we could go to the church afterwards and do a church tour with them. They of course said yes! So on our way back to the church we stopped at Tina's home to see what had happened earlier and also see if she could come to one that night. She said that she was sorry that she forgot and said that she would come as well!! So we taught the first one, and it went great! The spirit was so strong, and the member's son, Rob, said that we could continue to teach him. (In fact we just had another lesson with him on Sunday and he has committed to read and pray about the Book of Mormon to see if Joseph Smith was a prophet). After they left Tina showed up for her church tour, and hers went just as well!!! It was very spiritual and powerful. The best part was that at the end she told us that she believed that the Book of Mormon was true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet. We were very shocked! We asked her how she came to know this and she said, " I just started to really listen to you and I just know it is true now!" WOW!! Such a blessing! And we taught her on Friday and had a great lesson with her. She has made a 180 and is starting to really progress! Now, she just needs to come to church!! We are also teaching her daughter!

    And another great story happened just the other day. In fact, yesterday. We have been teaching this member and her less active husband for quite a while, and they both have made tons of progress too. But Brother Noble, husband, told us that his neighbor, Bud, wanted us to come by and see him. So we went over and started to talk to him. We were able to get into his home and start teaching him and his wife. They asked all of the right questions. Questions like, "Why are there so many churches?" "How can we know what is truth?" "The bible has been translated so many times, how can we know what it really means?" and lots of other great questions that can be answered by the restoration message! It was so great! We are going back to teach them again on Saturday!

   So as you can see, there is plenty of work to do here, and the Lord is really blessing us a lot!!! I am so grateful to be a missionary in this wonderful work! There is nothing more satisfying then serving others! I would invite all of you to serve each other this week! I have found that as we can waste so much time trying to getting instant gratification through tv, video games, movies, ipods, computers, etc... This is what the world wants, Instant everything! But true happeness doesn't come from these things, Happiness comes from serving others around you and loving those whom you serve. That is were we can find lasting gratification and true happiness, as we serve our families, and also our extended family (everybody else). A great scripture for this is, Mosiah 2:17 And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn ^awisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the ^bservice of your ^cfellow beings ye are only in the service of your God. Such great counsel from a wonderful Prophet, Kind Benjamin!! We can find happiness serving others because we are serving God!

    Well everybody, I truly love you all! I miss you, but am really enjoying my time out here. It makes me sad that it has to end one day! So I work hard every day to try and do as much good as I can while I'm out here! I hope that all of your days this week will be full of service, and lots of fun activities! I look forward to hearing from you ALL.( notice the empthises on the "all" that means you Erin... and Cameron... :) haha I love you guys!

Elder Elder

 

p.s. I did not get the picture of you and brad. you should send it again!

p.s.s. We got transfer calls, and we will be staying here in Clinton for at least another 6 weeks! But I bet I will be here a lot longer than that!

Sunset over the Mississippi River

This is my recliner

My district!

My companion...

I got a wart frozen off!

And it blistered up!

We had a baptism on Saturday!!! It was really sweet! His name is Sean V, such a great guy!! Sean is on the right. Joe C. is the one who baptized him. He is a sweet member here.

I tried to cut my leg off!!! Ok, not really, but here's what happened. I was pounding a post in for a fence with a post pounder and I guess I hit the post in farther than I thought! Because when I pulled the post pounder up, I accidentally pulled it too high and when I brought it down, of course, I missed the post, and well... hit myself!