Sunday, February 18, 2018

Email treinta y ocho



May 1, 2017 
Hey folks! This week was fantastic! An overall update: I am now up around 190 pounds. I don't know if it's muscle from working out everyday or fat from eating a ridiculous amount of food, most likely both. 



Elder Croft sole my iPad while I was asleeep
The good news is that as am physically getting fatter, I feel that I am also spiritually fattening up. Before the mission, studying Gospel material almost felt like a punishment. Now however, it feels more like a privilege. Every time I open the Book of Mormon, Bible, or read from a Conference talk, or read an article on lds.org, I just love it! I feel my knowledge and love of the Gospel growing. One of my favorite things to do at night after a hard day’s work is watch the “I'm a Mormon” videos along with some ice cream. I love hearing ordinary people's stories about who they are and how they live the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I invite all of you to visit Mormon.org and watch some of these videos, they are very inspiring and very well done. 

Tuesday I conducted District Meeting again. I instructed on the Gospel of Jesus Christ and how important covenants are in the Gospel and the conversion process, and I focused specifically on the ordinance of the Sacrament. Basically it goes like this: 

The conversion process begins when an investigator, or when any child of God, feels the Spirit for the first time, which in turns strengthens their faith. That faith then motivates them to make changes that bring their life in closer harmony with the teachings of Jesus Christ, to repent. This gives them the desire to follow the example of Jesus Christ, and to do so by being baptized by someone holding the Priesthood authority of God. After baptism, they receive the gift of the Holy Ghost and receive the promise that if they live worthily, they will always have the Holy Ghost. They then begin to endure to the end by continually repeating the same process. 

They continue strengthening their faith, which leads them to continually repent and be more Christ-like. They renew their baptismal commitment to take Christ's name upon them, always remember Him, and keep the commandments that He has given them each week as they worthily take the Sacrament. As they do that, they have the Lord's promise that they will always have His spirit to be with them, which in turn brings the Holy Ghost more into their lives. Then eventually, as they keep on strengthening their faith and repenting and being more like Christ, they enter into the Temple to make sacred covenants with Heavenly Father, which if they obey there are promised blessings, which allows the Spirit to be in their lives and strengthens their faith. It's all a continual process! Our conversion and our devotion to the Gospel of Jesus Christ is one continual round! 

Weekly partaking of the Sacrament is SO crucially important. It holds everything together. It's the main reason we go to church every Sunday. If we take the bread and water worthily, it has the very same cleansing effects as baptism, it's like being baptized every single week! I invite you all to remember the importance of the Sacrament and to test it with the reverence it deserves. 

Dad emailed me a little bit ago and told about how he has been focusing on the phrase from the Sacrament prayer "always remember him" and how he can be better at always remembering Jesus Christ. Lately I have been thinking about the same thing. It should not be very hard to do, but for some reason we forget what's more important. We worry more about things that don't matter, such as what others think of us, if so-and-so likes us back or not, or what's on our phone screen. One thing I did to help me be better is I changed the password of my iPad to "rememberhim". It has helped, and also shown me that maybe I have gotten too attached to my iPad. I want to "disconnect" so to speak. 

There's a song I like called "Everything Must Go" by Brandon Heath. It's about a man who sells all of his possessions because he decides he needs to simplify his life and make room for love. I've realized that I sometimes am far too obsessed with materialistic things, and I need to focus more on love. My love for my Savior, for my family, my friends, my investigators, my companions, Ward members, and all of God's children! I want to be more full of love for everyone, regardless of whether or not that love is extended towards me. 


On Wednesday we drove down to Little Rock at 6 in the morning with the Jonesboro Zone Leaders to do exchanges with the Spanish Zone Leaders. They had a Mission Leadership Conference, so we hung out with the other Little Rock Spanish Elders, Elder Santiago (from Puerto Rico), and Elder Merrill (from Logan), in the meantime. We got to go to Downtown Little Rock, which was really cool, we even took pictures at the capitol building! Being in Little Rock with Elder Jorgensen was so much fun, he's probably one of my favorite Elders in the mission. Super down to earth, and an awesome missionary! We had a ton of fun together and laughed our heads off. 

I want to leave y'all with my testimony that God lives, Jesus Christ is our Savior, and his church is back on the earth again. The Church is true, the Book is blue, the bread and water can make you feel new! Love y'all!

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