October 22, 2018
Funny: Serving in a small branch it is inevitable that we
often get asked to speak in church. Now I'm not the best natural speaker in the
whole world. However, with all the practice I've been getting a little
better... so I thought. This Saturday we got a call from the elders in
Chadrin Nebraska who were supposed to be speaking on Sunday in Hot Springs but
couldn't anymore, asking us to speak, we said yes. Later that day we got
another call from the branch presidency asking us to speak, we told them we
were already planning on it. Saturday night we get another call from the Elders
saying you don't have to speak anymore the branch presidency found someone else
to speak. So we said alright that's fine with us. At the time we didn't realize
that the people the branch presidency found to speak was us. So we went to
church Sunday not having prepared anything, and found ourselves sitting up in
front of the church about to give talks. Surprisingly the talks still turned
out alright! It just goes to show that when you trust in the Spirit you really
can't mess up too bad no matter how inadequate you are.
Spiritual: In one of our lessons this week there is a man we
are teaching named Moses. He was telling us that he really wants to believe, he
wants to change, he wants to have a relationship with Christ in his life, but
he just didn't know for sure if God really is there. We read to him Alma 32:27
from the Book of Mormon it says "If ye will awake and arouse
your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a
particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to
believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye
can give place for a portion of my words." The definition of
faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of something. It is when we choose to
believe because we have a desire to believe. God doesn't expect us to know
perfectly where this is His true church. He expects us to exercise a particle
of faith and experiment upon his words, so that we may come to believe. This is
just as true for Moses as it is for all of us. I exhort all to experiment upon
the words of Christ, and I can promise you that you will come to believe that
they are true.
Where I'm at: A little over a week ago my phone broke so
I've been doing my missionary work without it. On the one hand It's really nice
to not have the distraction and see what missions were like before technology, on
the other hand it really made me appreciate how amazing the area book app is.
It makes missionary work so much more efficient! Also my fellow missionaries
have been telling me everyone has some kind of weird medical thing while being
on their mission, and mine is I found out last week that I have rheumatoid
arthritis. My joints had been hurting, but I sort of dismissed it until my
joints started to swell up a little and get inflamed, and when I went to the
doctors last week they gave me medicine for it, and now I’m doing just fine!
Hot Spring is still the best area, and I’m still absolutely loving every second
of my mission! Thank you all for loving and supporting me I appreciate it!
