WEEK 3 LANSING (WEEK 74 OF MISSION)

Transfer Day looks like a lot of fun!

Reunited with Elder Williams, a former Companion.
That's the 15-passenger van behind them ;)

Thanks to Barb for all the pictures!!!
She's the Best

what an awesome week! we have had so many miracles! i am very thankful for all these blessings! this week was so busy as we moved some missionaries and taught a lot. we went on trade offs, i spent the day here with E. Schmutz from Western Michigan University and then was with Elder Tuttle (who i came out with) at Central Michigan University. we had a great time. 

meanwhile, back at the farm, we have some incredible investigators. I told you about that guy a few weeks ago i think who said that China is not as happy as America because they dont believe in God and things. well, we started teaching him. his chinese name is xiang li but his american name is richard. we taught him twice this week and he LOVED it. These amazing chinese people are so thirsty for the Gospel. I wish you could hear them pray for the first time. they are so sincere and love learning about their Heavenly Father. i could talk about him forever. but he attended church this week, and fast and testimony meeting was wonderful. in sunday school he stood up to introduce himself and said, "what just happened in sacrament meeting was awesome" then in priesthood he introduced himself and said that he wants to come to church every week because he loves it so much and that he is willing to be baptized. he has recognized answers to his prayers and the chinese members of the ward have been great to him.

we are teaching so many cool people. one more miracle. yesterday bishop solomon (our bishop in the east lansing university ward) called us around 5 and asked if we could come to the stake center so we did. we walked in and found him talking with an 18 year old chinese male. his name is mark. he told us he wanted to transfer to byu. he had heard byu was a good school from his high school teachers in china. he went online, found where the nearest bishop was, biked clear from his dorms and walked in and knocked on bishops door in the stake center for an interview. we taught him the restoration and gave him a Chinese bom. he loved learning about God too and wants to continue meeting and reading the bom! we are being so blessed right now for no apparent reason.

everybody please go and read mormon 5:17-18. it is so true. one thing i have been thinking about this week is how the world tries to satisfy our spiritual needs for peace and joy. lets say peace and joy are fresh water. we need that to survive. if somebody is stranded with only salt water around them and they cannot find fresh water, their mind will tell them to drink salt water even if they have been taught never to do that. as they drink the salt water, it feels good. it soothes and curbs their thirst, albeit momentarily. what follows next is a vicious cycle. the salt from the water dries on their tongue. it makes them more thirsty than before. they become more desperate. they drink more salt water to satisfy that thirst, and more salt stays in their mouth. they continue drinking salt water until it eventually causes their death. if someone cannot find peace and joy, they may revert to satan's enticings and the, "vain things of the world," so called because they are vain, they do not satisfy. as they find transient happiness in this "salt water" they are enticed to drink more and more, never fully quenching their spiritual thirst. viewed in this context, it is easy to see why the Savior says that He will give us living water, which if we drink we shall never thirst. Only His teachings and His Gospel can satisfy our needs for peace and joy. It will last. it is the real thing. there is substance to it. i encourage each of you to seek this Living Water from the scriptures. pray, read and obey. 

i love you all!

WEEK 2 LANSING (WEEK 73 0F MISSION)

great week. we drove safe. everyone got where they needed to go! haha we were in Traverse City last weekend with the zone leaders up there and it was beautiful! we were door knocking on the peninsula and it was soo gorgeous! had a great time. we are going to teach a girl named Samiya tonight so wish us luck! 

the Book of Mormon is true. Read it. Read 3 nephi 1. the people were being mocked for their beliefs. they were going to be killed. even some that believed began to doubt. they were going through a trial of their faith. if anybody is going through a trial of their faith, just hang on. dont jump ship. read 3 nephi 1 and see how the Lord provided for the nephites and know that He will do the same for you. Just hang on and believe in good things to come. Please watch the church's newest Mormon Message on depression and encourage all around you, including yourself! Heavenly Father loves you infinitely. Do not allow the adversary to tell you otherwise. Here is a quote from Brigham Young, "If you have a bad or negative thought about yourself, tell it to go to hell, because that is exactly where it came from." it is true! push through the trials of your faith. use it as a time and an excuse to get closer to God! 

love you all! have a great week!

if i get a chance later this week i will email you all back!

Amanda Voyles from our stake here in South Jordan, who now lives in Parker's ward in Lansing. So thankful for her kindness! 

WEEK 1 LANSING (WEEK 72 OF MISSION)

hey everybody! what a great week on campus! serving on campus is super different, but super fun! this week is transfer week, which basically means that for the next 4 days i will be driving a giant 15 passenger van with a trailer behind it for about 1400 miles. so.. yeah... not a lot of missionary work happening this week haha. 

 

Why are all three of them squeezed into the front seat?!?

Missionaries!?!

so we pc'd all week (personal contacted). that is where we walk around and talk to random people all day long and invite them to meet with us haha. it is basically like we are ping pong balls because we just bounce from person to person and group to group. we have a lot of fun. we set tons of return appointments and get loads of phone numbers. sad part is, not everybody follows through haha. so we were wondering how we can be more effective on campus. and we had this idea. we took a big white cardboard poster, made it look nice, and put, "what would you ask God?" in the middle of it. we walked around campus and asked students what they would ask god and had them write their questions on the board. then we told them we would hold a large group class this next week where we will answer a few of these questions each week. and it went awesome! we got some sweet responses and met loads of cool people.

here is what was so cool: we ask people all the time what the purpose of life is, and nobody wants to say i dont know, so they give a token response. but yesterday, lots of people wrote things like what is the purpose of life? why did God put me here? especially the chinese students. when we would ask if they think about their question often, they would say every day i wonder why i am here. or something like that! cool, right? so we are hoping this new idea works! 

i love James E Talmage. check out this parable of his: it is a little lengthy, but soo worth reading! please read it!

Sometimes I find myself under obligations of work requiring quiet and seclusion such as neither my comfortable office nor the cozy study at home insures. My favorite retreat is an upper room in the tower of a large building, well removed from the noise and confusion of the city streets. The room is somewhat difficult of access and relatively secure against human intrusion. Therein I have spent many peaceful and busy hours with books and pen.

I am not always without visitors, however, especially in summertime; for when I sit with windows open, flying insects occasionally find entrance and share the place with me. These self-invited guests are not unwelcome. Many a time I have laid down the pen and, forgetful of my theme, have watched with interest the activities of these winged visitants, with an afterthought that the time so spent had not been wasted, for is it not true that even a butterfly, a beetle, or a bee may be a bearer of lessons to the receptive student?

A wild bee from the neighboring hills once flew into the room, and at intervals during an hour or more I caught the pleasing hum of its flight. The little creature realized that it was a prisoner, yet all its efforts to find the exit through the partly opened casement failed. When ready to close up the room and leave, I threw the window wide and tried at first to guide and then to drive the bee to liberty and safety, knowing well that if left in the room it would die as other insects there entrapped had perished in the dry atmosphere of the enclosure. The more I tried to drive it out, the more determinedly did it oppose and resist my efforts. Its erstwhile peaceful hum developed into an angry roar; its darting flight became hostile and threatening.

Then it caught me off my guard and stung my hand—the hand that would have guided it to freedom. At last it alighted on a pendant attached to the ceiling, beyond my reach of help or injury. The sharp pain of its unkind sting aroused in me rather pity than anger. I knew the inevitable penalty of its mistaken opposition and defiance, and I had to leave the creature to its fate. Three days later I returned to the room and found the dried, lifeless body of the bee on the writing table. It had paid for its stubbornness with its life.

To the bee’s shortsightedness and selfish misunderstanding I was a foe, a persistent persecutor, a mortal enemy bent on its destruction; while in truth I was its friend, offering it ransom of the life it had put in forfeit through its own error, striving to redeem it, in spite of itself, from the prison house of death and restore it to the outer air of liberty.

Are we so much wiser than the bee that no analogy lies between its unwise course and our lives? We are prone to contend, sometimes with vehemence and anger, against the adversity which after all may be the manifestation of superior wisdom and loving care, directed against our temporary comfort for our permanent blessing. In the tribulations and sufferings of mortality there is a divine ministry which only the godless soul can wholly fail to discern. To many the loss of wealth has been a boon, a providential means of leading or driving them from the confines of selfish indulgence to the sunshine and the open, where boundless opportunity waits on effort. Disappointment, sorrow, and affliction may be the expression of an all-wise Father’s kindness.

Consider the lesson of the unwise bee!

“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths” (Prov. 3:5–6).

what a lesson for us all! i hope you enjoyed that thought from Elder Talmage.

I love you all! wish me luck!

WEEK 11 OKEMOS (WEEK 71 OF MISSION)

In the Mission Office with Elders Foust and Derricott

hey everybody! 

hope you are having a great week! so we have seen some awesome things this week and this week has been OFF THE WALL crazy. elder elwood and i taught a lady named traci that we found a week ago. we had to cancel our first appointment with her, but she rescheduled right then (that never happens haha). we went and taught her and she was super excited to be meeting with us. she loved the restoration and had great questions. she prayed for the first time at the end of our lesson. she prayed a very sincere prayer and asked that she would be able to, "believe the way these guys believe." how cool is that?? 

here is the problem with traci.... i got transferred. in the middle of the week i was suddenly abducted and called to serve with elder derricott on campus at msu as an assistant to president jacobsen. elder foust (the assistant i am replacing) is training me. he is the greatest so luckily i will be able to learn a lot before he leaves. we have been super busy and planning to call the missionaries and let them know where they are moving for transfers. we are also preparing to move all of the missionaries to their new areas. luckily we still got to go out on campus and find people. it was awesome. 

MSU Campus

we had a great stake conference this week, Elder Hamula came and it was incredible! 

we are working hard and having fun. Elder Derricott says hi! remember, he was my mtc comp. 

we are so weird, but today we went to the rare isotope beams laboratory for fun. and we took a tour from an awesome msu professor there. he was so cool and we talked for a while and learned a lot. at the end we asked him if he believed in God and he said yes for sure. he was a nuclear physicist and an astronomer. we asked him if he wanted to learn what we believed and we sat down and taught him a little about the pre earth life. i love that we can answer the question, "why did God make an earth and put humans on it? why did he create us?" was it for fun? an experiment? company? what was it? no, He created us to become as He is. He loves us infinitely, even though to Him, we are infinitely small. Choose to believe in His love. We don't have to know everything. We just have to know and believe that God loves us all (1 nephi 11:17). last thought: how do we avoid temptation? 1 nephi 15:26-27. the only way is to have our minds so caught up in other things. have our thoughts focused on righteous things. preoccupation with unworthy behavior can lead to unworthy behavior. think good thoughts. love you all. have a great week.

ps if this is the last longer email i send, i am sorry. life is about to get busy. well.. busier. 

MSU Hall of Fame

Spartan Stadium 

MSU National Football Champion Trophies

WEEK 10 OKEMOS (WEEK 70 OF MISSION)

Parker trying to look so smug (smudge as we call it)!

Trying to be cool in their minivan!

Having lunch with a sweet member from 
Wyoming, Sister Van Horn.

Parker on Trade Offs with his old Trainee, Elder Norton

hey everybody!! wasn't conference epic?? ahh I loved it!

I don't have a ton of time this week, so here are a few quick updates. we are still knocking the daylights out of south lansing and Okemos trying to find those who have been prepared to receive the gospel. lorie is doing alright. every time we meet with her it goes so well! she is just struggling to get work off long enough to come to church! she works nights as a nurse. she would have loved conference! ahhh.. oh well, we wil get her this week! kevin came to two sessions and seemed to enjoy it. he yelled out "amen!" in the middle of two talks when he liked what they said, so if that's any indication... haha he would be such a great member! Julie is doing well. she will be watching conference from her home as she was out of town this weekend. we are still trying to find new investigators! we keep finding new ones, then they get anti'd, but we just need to find some families! that is our main goal and our main prayer.

I loved conference! a few quick thoughts. the 12 and the Prophet were really stressing the importance of gaining a personal witness from the Holy Ghost that God lives, that Jesus is the Christ, and that the Book of Mormon is true. We each must do that. Listen to Uchtdorf's first talk (sat morning session) and apply what he teaches for however long it takes. please. the strength of the church is not determined by the size of its congregations, but by the strength of the testimonies of its individual members.

faith is critical. God has revealed Himself and His Son that we might have unshaken faith in them because they possess in full all of the attributes of godliness. Joseph Smith taught that unless we can count on God to be merciful, loving, forgiving, patient, and every other good thing, then we will be in constant doubt of salvation. but once we know God's character, such knowledge does away with doubt, and makes faith exceedingly strong. there is much we do not know in this world. the tides of the world are getting stronger, yet more subtle. isn't that something? they are less perceptible, yet more powerful. all you have to do to see where the world is going is walk into a mall. trust me. we did it today haha. it was not good. see the immorality and lawlessness. ask yourself, "if I live the lifestyle the world is telling me to live, where will I be in 50 years? will I be closer to God? will I be ready to meet Him? will I have self-respect? will I want my children to follow my example?" harsh questions, I know. but we each need to have our own testimony that God lives and that His commandments are for our best benefit. do whatever it takes to receive that witness from the Holy Ghost, then do whatever it takes to keep the Holy Ghost with you at all times. Believe in Christ. He is as good as the scriptures say. He will forgive you. He loves you. God loves all people. listen to elder klebingat's talk please. follow his counsel.

Just when you thought Parker was getting too serious on ya!
Parker's Trainee, Elder Norton, and Norton's new
Trainee, Elder Tubagus.

love you all! have a great week!

WEEK 9 OKEMOS (WEEK 69 OF MISSION)

Parker and his comp, Elder Elwood at lunch at "Tacos E' Mas"

"Why so serious?"

Parker, Sister Pawson, Elder Elwood

hey everybody! 

another great week in meridian! we are working hard and talking to loads of people trying to find those who are prepared to receive the fulness of the gospel! we have had miracles and seen miracles in teaching and finding. now we just need a few more to get these people to church and to baptism! here is one of them: two weeks back we went to go try and find a Less active member who was on the roster. it was probably about 130 in the afternoon or so. as we were approaching the apartment complex, a lady was walking by. she stopped and asked if we were Jehovah's Witnesses. we said no. she told us she had some questions for us. so she started asking us about the movie Noah and how biblical it was (hard to say because i have never seen the movie and rarely study the biblical account of noah so i hope i didnt give her false information by saying everything in the movie is 100% true? just kidding). we scheduled a day to meet with her. we showed up, she was gone. rescheduled. we showed up again, she was gone again. darn. 

then on thursday, elder elwood and i were in the neighborhood and decided to pop in. she was in the backyard cutting up some trees and we started to help her. she began asking questions, we sat down and taught her the restoration. she LOVED it. she was so excited! we scheduled to come back the next day and teach her the plan of salvation. we did. she read the bom chapter we left her and understood it so well. we taught her the plan of salvation and she loved that too. she was wondering why no other church has ever taught her this stuff. we asked her to be baptized on the 18th of october and she said cant we do it sooner? haha we explained we had lots to teach her and things, but she is awesome! she had to work and couldnt make church this week, so we have some more things we have to take care of to get her to baptism but she is a miracle! 

remember, repentance IS the plan of salvation for every person. it is not the back-up plan. never be afraid to repent. it is an incredible opportunity to repent. when you repent, BE SPECIFIC. don't just say, "please forgive me for my mistakes." say, "i really am sorry for being short and rude to my friend. please help me to do better next time i am in that situation. forgive me. help my friend to forgive me." i promise that as you do this, you will feel the Spirit testifying to you that what you are doing is good and is cleansing. of course, we cannot do that for all of our sins, otherwise we would spend the rest of our lives praying for forgiveness. but pray to have your most critical offenses brought to your attention, and then repent of them specifically! do this throughout the week, especially before you attend church to partake of the sacrament. go in repentant, and leave knowing that last week is behind you. ask that through the Atonement of Christ your weaknesses of this past week may "become strong unto you.” (ether 12:27) 

We all need to repent. we all need to be more Christlike! be patient with everybody else's mistakes because you make them too. the perfectionist is far from perfect because not only is he or she not perfect, but they hold everybody else to their standard, so in their eyes, nobody is good enough, including themselves! 

love you all! have a great week! 
ps we are getting to watch meet the mormons thursday morning before zone training! awesome huh?? listen to prophets and apostles this week!! prayerfully and repentantly! 

WEEK 8 OKEMOS (WEEK 68 OF MISSION)

hey everybody! awesome week here! please go to meetthemormons.com and hit the red button in the top corner to request a showing. in the zip code type 48864! we need that movie here! please do that right now! thank you!!

We had a good week this week. we are hoping to begin teaching a few of the families we have found this week. not a ton of time this week to update you! i had trade offs in portland this week and we saw miracles! found some ultra prepared people! it was so cool! we need some of that magic here in lansing! 

why do we need to have faith in Jesus Christ? why is that a necessary principle in our salvation? God wants us all to come back to Him. He sent us a perfect example of how to do that in Jesus Christ. He is the prototype of a saved person. if anyone desires salvation, they must be as Jesus Christ. now luckily we dont have to be immediately perfect as He was, thanks to His Atonement. We must have faith in Him because He is the way. We must believe that He was who He said He was so we have motivation to follow Him and do as He did. We must also believe that He unlocked forgiveness for our sins when He performed the Atonement. I am grateful He was my perfect example and that I know I must follow Him. He is the only one who teaches the true purpose of life. He loves us perfectly. some people choose to pattern their lives after celebrities, sports stars, or others they know. When you are thinking about your role models, ask yourself does this person care about me? do they want whats best for me? what are they willing to do to help me? The Savior knows you, cares about you, and wants to help you. he is the only one we can place our trust in without reservation. He alone can ask us to do as He did, because He was the greatest and only perfect Being to ever live on this earth. FOLLOW HIM!

elder green

WEEK 7 OKEMOS (WEEK 67 OF MISSION)

awesome week, too many miracles!! not a ton of time!

we fasted and prayed for families and wow! we found an awesome couple named rudy and elaine this past week, and  a few other potential families. one of them is soo awesome. we had door knocked forever this day, looking for families. it was getting late. literally the last door we knocked (it always happens that way). a dad and his little son open the door. we talked to the dad and he was really cool. he was pretty open to hearing our message and said he wanted his sons to be taught more about God and His standards. turns out this guy played baseball for msu years ago. then his wife comes downstairs and meets us and she was awesome too, said she followed some mormon moms fashion blogs! haha awesome right?? hopefully we will begin to teach them this week! 

Me and Kevin. One of my favorite people ever! Check out his huge bible!! haha Love him!

we talk to a lot of atheists here. i always ask them how the universe began. they say the big bang. i ask them to explain it. they cant. then we usually explain it to them. here is my point: no matter what, you HAVE TO HAVE FAITH. if you dont have faith in God, then you have to have faith in the big bang THEORY, or stephen hawkings, or evolution, but you have to have faith! you are just having faith in something different. if you believe in evolution or the big bang, you have loads of faith. you believe in miracles! you believe in something that nobody has ever seen and that we have never replicated. you believe in an evolutionary miracle. if you believe in God, you believe in someone that thousands of holy men testify they have seen and spoken with face to face. you believe in records kept by ancient civilizations describing the ministrations of the Son of God on the earth. you believe in evidence and you believe in proof. Now, that is not to say that we have all the answers, nor do we need to. like nephi, we can respond that, "we know that God loves His children, nevertheless we do not know the meaning of all things." like alma speaking to korihor, we can show that we have evidence, while those who oppose God have no evidence, save their word only. I love all people, or at least i try to. God our Father loves all people. He wants us to know Him. He will manifest Himself to you if you put forth sincere effort and display your faith. read alma 32. it is about more than faith growing. really read it. 

have a great week! 

elder green

ps julie had an epiphany this week! still not over all her hurdles, but doing soo well! huge miracle! also, got a message from sue nelson (convert from kalkaska) saying that she is getting married and wants me to go through the temple with her on february 7th! awesome!!!!! miracle!!! what a saint!!! kevin came to church yesterday and really loved it!! awesome!! 

WEEK 6 OKEMOS (WEEK 66 OF MISSION)

hey everyone! sorry! not a lot of time! it was transfer week this week and we became mini assistants to the president and helped the real assistants out a ton! so we have been crazy busy! things have been good here! 

we fasted for families and prayed to be able to find them. yesterday we received a referral for a family and we are going to receive more from some other members today! what awesome miracles! God is good! 

quick tip: dont door knock in okemos when there is an msu game on. especially when they are playing oregon haha our whole area is just HUGE msu fans. all the professors live in our area. so we were door knocking all day saturday looking for families and long story short, people dont want to talk during the day of the game. or even the weekend of the game haha. the only time someone gave us the time of day was during half time. no joke. but this week will be better! !

julie came to church! it went ok haha you never really know what you are going to get at a testimony meeting. we are going to see her right after this. we had a great lesson with another one of our investigators named dave. he has been somewhat interested, but not totally. we hadnt seen him for a while. we had taught him the restoration and the gospel of Jesus Christ and he was doing alright with it. wouldnt accept a baptismal invite. but then we taught him the Plan of Salvation and it all clicked. he loved it! he was saying it all made so much sense and that it changed everything! he accepted a baptismal invite and said that now he really was pondering if he should be baptized in our church! he said he would come to church, didn't show up. but this week itll happen! what a miracle. 

things are going well with kevin. he is so awesome. made some huge strides in our lesson yesterday. 

alma 28:8 is a good summary of a mission. its the perfect summary of a mission. “And this is the account of Ammon and his brethren, their journeyings in the land of Nephi, their sufferings in the land, their sorrows, and their afflictions, and their incomprehensible joy, and the reception and safety of the brethren in the land of Jershon. And now may the Lord, the redeemer of all men, bless their souls forever.” the Book of Mormon is wonderful. I know that if you have gospel questions and you pray about it, ponder it, and search the words of the prophets, the Lord will reveal the answer to you. I love learning. there is nothing like learning. here is a quick thought to end the letter. everybody has needs. some of these needs fall into basic categories. here are four of them from maslow’s heirarchy of needs: belonging, validation, physical needs, and knowledge. think about how the Gospel fulfills those needs. That is one reason why the Gospel is so powerful. it tells us we BELONG to God's family and have the potential to belong to an eternal family. we belong to a huge church family as well! eph 2:19-20. it VALIDATES us because it teaches that each of us are of infinite worth, and that the only Holy and perfect Being to ever walk this earth laid down His life for each of us! we are all of infinite worth, and no matter what we have done, there is still hope. God cares much more about where we are going then where we have been. 1 ne 11: 17. romans 8: 16-17.  there are PHYSICAL and TEMPORAL blessings given for living the commandments. mosiah 2:41. and if you want KNOWLEDGE all you have to do is come and get it. there is an infinity of knowledge waiting in the Gospel for everybody who seeks it. alma 12: 9-11. 

love you all! have a great week!

WEEK 5 OKEMOS (WEEK 65 0F MISSION)

I received a text with this pic Sunday. 
This is Amanda Rogers Voyles who went to Bingham 
and played on the tennis team.  She and her husband 
are in Parker's ward and had him over for dinner! 
What a small, small world!!!

hey everyone!! what an awesome week! there is nothing quite like being a missionary! 

we were blessed to find some awesome new investigators this week! we are still looking for a family to teach and baptize. that is our ultimate goal. kevin is doing alright. every lesson with him is a real battle haha but then the spirit hits him and he calms down. julie is doing well, hopefully she will be at church this weekend. 

i have done a terrible job talking about my mission and where i am serving in these emails so i really am sorry about that! yesterday for labor day we had a lot of the elders from the zone get together at the lansing stake center and we had a bbq and played bball for about 5 hours. it was awesome!! haha such a great day. pictures to come next week. 

 

Mission Leadership Conference
What a happy group :)

here is a miracle that i just found out about today from elder williams (my comp in wyoming who is still serving there). remember those 4 pages of referrals we got from a former missionary when i was in wyoming? well, one of the people we found from those papers was named hawa. hawa is a woman from sierre leone. she used to be muslim but converted to christianity. she is  a single mother with 4 little african children. she was really nice, but was never a big fan of what we taught because she got anti'd by her other church when she told them she was meeting with us. we did service for her a few times and softened her heart. well anyway, i got transferred and she was still learning, but not super interested. elder williams continued to teach her. a member named vincent moved into the wyoming ward. he was from sierre leon. he had just moved from new jersey where he had joined the church a few months back. he had studied with 7th day adventists for 22 years and never felt it was true. he met the elders and was baptized 3 weeks later. well anyway, they took vincent to hawa's next lesson. hawa wasnt there. they called her. she said she would be there in a few minutes. she later told the elders that she almost told them right then to leave and just not come back cuz she didnt want to learn anymore. but something stopped her. when she arrived she got out of the car and saw vincent. "vincent??!!" she says. "Hawa?!" says vincent. turns out, vincent is her brother-in -law who she hadnt seen in years. they taught her, vincent testified of everything, and now hawa is going to get baptized. she loves the bom and her children love church. what??!! isnt that crazy?? that shows that this is God's work. that is incredible!! 

we have had miracles here too. we are teaching some wonderful people. i love learning more and more from the scriptures. the Holy Ghost feels good. faith is more of a mental process than anything else. it requires effort. you become what you think. preoccupation with unworthy behavior can lead to unworthy behavior. whenever you participate in an activity, ask yourself if there is any light in it. is there anything uplifting or edifying or spiritual or virtuous or noble about that activity? if not, probably dont do it! its not worth your time. darkness is the absence of light. no one can walk into a room filled with light and turn darkness on. you can only turn light off. fill your life with the literal light of the gospel. it is an actual tangible power. it comes from doing things that bring light and from avoiding the darkness. reading your scriptures, attending church and praying. choose good friends. make good decisions. think good thoughts. sorry this is so scattered, i am in a hurry haha. hope you got something from that mess!! if your eye be single to God's glory, then shall your whole body be filled with light, and a body filled with light comprehendeth all things! alma 19:6. READ IT. 

love you! 

With one of Elder Elwood's converts at Temple for first time!