Hejsan!!!
This week went by way too fast! I guess time flies in the Lord's service. I also just realized it's starting to get dark, and winter is beginning. The sun moves really fast here. It's moved from one point on the ground, to about two feet away in one hour. This week apparently the northern lights came down far enough for us to see them, but no one told us again, so we didn't get to see them.
Monday we had a nice conference review during Family Home Evening. The Spirit was very strong there, which made it a really nice cap to the day. Tuesday we worked really hard in our area and despite our efforts, we only taught one lesson, but we found some good spots we want to do a lot more work in our area. We started my companion's first companion exchange, and it was too bad it had to be tonight, because me and my temporary companion went to an outstanding member dinner, where an investigator was taught the Plan of Salvation. It went really well. I quickly became good friends with the investigator too since we both worked with IT (well, I guess he still works with it).
Wednesday I was on splits with Elder Blackburn from Sacramento. It turns out we have everything in common basically. So it was a fun time. We went tracting, and found a couple positive people who accepted a Book of Mormon, got a member present lesson cancelled on us, so we did some area book work, and found some more positive people to teach, then we went out tracting again after dinner and found positive people on our way there. It was a great day! Then on Thursday we switched back at district meeting, but after district meeting we learned a little Kung Fu from a member. He warned us to bring a change of clothes, but I had somehow forgotten, and ended up practicing Kung Fu "Bond Style" as I like to call it. Basically I was throwing kicks and punches in my proselyting clothes. I'm sure I looked absolutely silly doing it, but I felt cool. The guy that cancelled on us the day before wanted to meet with us today, so we taught him after district meeting, and the lesson went very similarly to the lesson Elders Moreno and Christensen gave to Jynx in the district. "Did you get an answer?" "No." "How did you know Christ was your Savior?" Then he explained how he had felt the Holy Ghost, and we read through the title page of the Book of Mormon together to discuss the purpose of the book and help him to learn more from it. The next morning during studies he calls us and says, "I got an answer to my prayer. The Book of Mormon is holy scripture. Can you guys pray for me to get strength to stop smoking?" It made our day and week. We tried to meet with him before church, but he was too busy, so we ended up meeting up with him at church, and helping him through his first sacrament meeting. The members did a wonderful job at greeting him and talking with him. We even got him started on family history with the family history specialist here. Things are going really good for our investigator.
The rest of the week was about the same, lots of work, met some positive people, taught lessons, gave out the Book of Mormon, up until Saturday night. We got a call at 9:00 and I was asked to give a 10 min talk the next day. Open topic, with the suggestion of my favorite thing from General Conference. It might as well have been open topic with a suggestion like that. It was really good though because I spent the next morning preparing for it, and by 8:50, I had figured out what I wanted to talk about. During President Uchtdorf's priesthood session talk I had a question. "Why aren't we as spiritually strong as the children of Israel in the days of Daniel?" Three of Daniel's friends survived the fiery furnace, and Daniel received revelation of a dream and its interpretation. The answer I came up with was the Sabbath day observance. In the tradition of the Jews you would be stoned for walking too far on the Sabbath. In the traditions of our days you will be verbally stoned if you refuse to play sports on the Sabbath. What a big contrast! We need to be striving to make the Sabbath day a day that is truly spiritually refreshing and uplifting. A day where we delight ourselves in the service of the Lord. A day where we do not do our own pleasures. And it all starts with the sacrament. That will influence how the entire Sabbath day goes, and in turn, how the entire week goes. As we improve our observance of the sacrament, and the Sabbath, we will find success in all areas of our lives. God lives, and He fulfills the blessings He promises us. He keeps His end of covenants.
Have a wonderful week,
-- Äldste Liddle
PS we had 4 investigators in Sacrament meeting!
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