WEEK 5 LANSING (WEEK 76 OF MISSION)

Even missionaries "Duck Face!" 
Parker with Elder Ken Schmutz
 

President Jacobsen with the Zone

Since Parker lives in Student Housing at MSU these are some 
of his fun college neighbors!
That's a lot of pairs of glasses in one picture ;)

poem i wrote this week:

Smooth water ne'er made

a man a great sailor,

but when winds and strong waves

and all things assail Her,

the sailor reacts

and learns as he goes,

and stronger, wiser,

more able he grows.

But should the sailor fail

to endure the rough seas,

should his heart and his mind

long to sail with more ease,

he never could learn 

what can only be taught

when the sky is pitch black

and the waters distraught.  

Hey everyone! having to email today (sunday) due to zone conferences this week! 

speaking of zone conferences... Elder Nash was unexpectedly reassigned this week and will not be able to attend our zone conferences! so Elder Derricott and i will be doing a lot of teaching haha we are working hard to prepare for this surprise opportunity!

This past week was great. our investigators are doing wonderful. Derek Martindale is hunting and was not able to attend church, but he has been coming to all the institute activities and is doing very well! we were blessed to find a few new investigators this week, which is always great. a few of them have a ton of potential (well, every human life has a ton of potential) but these people could be baptized soon. we will see how they pan out this next week, then i will let you know! 

mark (chinese guy wanting to go to BYU) came to church for the first time today. he is doing well! he needs to keep reading and praying to know if this is God's church and he needs to make it out to some of the many social activities the YSA ward has here. 

Richard is doing so well. He is signing up to feed all the missionaries like once a week haha he is great. he loves learning. a few times, we have taught him new commandments and he has issues with them. but he agrees to pray about it and try it out. he came back last week reporting on how he has been living the Word of Wisdom. He says that he used to have problems with insomnia, but not since he has been living the WoW. He feels much healthier and loves the way his life is going right now. He enjoyed church again today, is making lots of friends, and is really excited to be baptized. 

Saturday we blitzed the North Muskegon area and it was really fun. it has been snowing here like crazy, so we got all decked out in our winter stuff and went out and door knocked forever. it was great. the first door Elder Bagley and i knocked on was classic: it was a group of like 7 middle aged black guys having band practice so we went in and listened to them and one of them had a son that was Mormon haah he lives in SLC his name is Michael Williams. Look for him! haha it was awesome. 

Even though Alma had seen angels, he still felt it necessary to seek a testimony for himself. Alma 5:45 -46. read those verses. they are powerful. we each ought to do whatever it takes to obtain for ourselves that knowledge which is of most value: a testimony that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is true and that God the Father lives, that Jesus is the Christ, and that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. We must make the effort. we must read the Book of Mormon, ponder it in our hearts, and seek after truth. We must pray fervently and sincerely. We must endure the test of time. We must fast in conjunction with our prayers. please follow this pattern. please seek a witness from the Holy Ghost that these things are true. 

the more i learn, the more i see that God is so willing to forgive our sins if we will but repent. in essence, the difference between the people in the telestial kingdom and the celestial kingdom is the ones in the Celestial Kingdom repented. they repented all the time. review elder klebingats talk from general conference and implement those principles into your lives. 

just another thought:

always be where you are supposed to be! if you are somewhere you ought not to be, get out! don't think you are strong enough to be amid great temptation and come out unscathed.

i love you all! 

have a great week.    

Trying to get a picture jumping