Thursday, September 21, 2017

Happy Spiritual Birthday

Hey all!

Has this been the best week ever? Yes. Confirmed. Before I talk about anything else, let's talk about Mina.

We taught her the Plan of Salvation this week! It took two visits, the first one other people were being disruptive and she had lots of questions. Seriously though, she's so awesome. When we told her about the spirit world, the gospel being preached to the dead, and the salvation of little children, she was so shocked. She told us "I wanted to believe those things, but no one taught them. No other church taught that. I thought they were too idealistic. But it's true!"

We also were going to invite her to be baptized using several scriptures, but after we read the first, she stopped us and was like "So, I need to be baptized." We told her yes, that's the idea. She said "alright, cool, I thought so. I'm down." We were so floored. We didn't even invite her, she just decided on her own! When we went to set her with a specific date, she said "well, my birthday is coming up." Turns out it's the day after the day we were going to ask her, and since her family will be around, she wants them to be there. How incredible!

On a side note, birthdays have been really lucky for us so far- Patty got baptized right around her birthday, and Stacey was confirmed on mine. It's a nice bit of coincidental symbolism. Oh the tender mercies of the Lord!

Then she came to church! Ahh! But she'll probably want to go to YSA from now on, it'll be a little more comfortable.

Mostly that's been the highlight of the week. Other cool stuff happens sometimes, but none of it is as cool as teaching someone so prepared and willing to receive our message.

We did get to volunteer at the bishop's storehouse on exchanges this past week, and that was pretty cool. Not to see people that were struggling, that was sad, but to see them helped, and how well-organized the church's program for them is. Everyone came to help, and we definitely got to help a lot of people.

This week we also had an great lesson with a less-active member. He hasn't been to church in more than 50 years, so he's understandably a little shaky on a lot of things. He was worried about prayer, but this past week he really made an effort to pray every day, and he seemed so happy! Not to say he's a grouchy old man normally, he just had a big smile on his face while we were talking, and we could feel the Spirit really well.

Oh yeah, and this family that we've been trying to get in contact with forever (along with everyone else in the ward) just showed up at church! It was so cool.

We also had interviews with President this week. That was super cool, even though mine was pretty short, I still learned a lot from it. Elder Tasi's was really long since he's heading home after next week, so I got to sit and talk with Sister Layton for forever. She shared a super cool scripture with me that she found in her studies- Doctrine and Covenants 127:4. It had something to do with what we were talking about, but it hit me hard for a different reason. While it's talking about the work on the temple, it can refer to the work all of us do. Not to say that I've been lazy, I really have been doing my best, but it's nice to know that when we falter because of our weaknesses we just need to dust ourselves off and try again, a bit harder this time. If we do so, we "shall in nowise lose [our] reward." God loves us and wants us to succeed! So when we make mistakes, He doesn't maliciously withdraw blessings to make us miserable, if He does anything it is eventually to make us happy. All we have to do is repent of our sins and keep trying.

Man, do I love missionary work. This is seriously the best.

Thanks for all your support!
Elder Adams

PS you wouldn't believe how many times I wrote the word "awesome" in this email before changing a bunch of them. I swear it was every fifth word.

Preach the gospel unto every creature, right? ;P

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