Week #101

Hey y’all! Another week is in the bag and the work is going very well. I love being a missionary! This week has been a lot of fun and we found out about some big things happening in the mission!

This week we found out that we are a pilot mission for the whole Church in using some of the features we have on our Area Book apps on our devices, and we are the only mission in the world doing it. We are almost being watched by the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and the First Presidency. So there is a lot of pressure I guess you could say haha. We also found out that all of the District Leaders are going to share a car with another District Leader and their companion, so that will be nice! We rotate every week. The down side is, we can only use it for leadership purposes — going on exchanges, doing interviews, and to meetings. Despite all of that, having a car with limits is still better than no car!

This week we also were able to go on exchanges with our Zone Leaders, and some crazy things happened! One of which was we saw someone who had broken into some lady’s car and overdosed, so that was interesting. And a cool miracle happened when we were being dropped off by the Zone Leaders. We ran into our neighbor, Shannon, while she was walking her dog. We talked to her for a bit, (we met her a little bit ago) and started talking about the gospel. She said she really wanted us to come by and teach her and her kids! We are super stoked to go by this weekend and teach her!

Art is doing well and is on track for the 23rd! He is doing great and is continuing to grow and progress every day! 

For my spiritual thought this week I wanted to share an awesome verse I read in my studies. It comes from the Book of Mormon, in 3 Nephi Chapter 5:1-3, which reads;

“1 And now behold, there was not a living soul among all the people of the Nephites who did doubt in the least the words of all the holy prophets who had spoken; for they knew that it must needs be that they must be fulfilled.

2 And they knew that it must be expedient that Christ had come, because of the many signs which had been given, according to the words of the prophets; and because of the things which had come to pass already they knew that it must needs be that all things should come to pass according to that which had been spoken.

3 Therefore they did forsake all their sins, and their abominations, and their whoredoms, and did serve God with all diligence day and night.”

I love these verses. The Nephites had developed faith that the prophecies that the prophets had spoken of were fulfilled, and they knew that the fulfillment of those prophecies meant that Christ had come. They had such strong faith in and knew that Christ had come, that “they did forsake all their sins, and their abominations, and their whoredoms, and did serve God with all diligence...”. True faith leads to action. Faith is the principle that underlies all else; that is, it takes faith in Christ to repent, or be baptized, or perform any other saving ordinance. That means that repentance, baptism, and all other principles and ordinances are not entirely separate, but are actually extensions of our faith in Christ. With faith in Christ, our lives become focused on doing things of eternal value. I invite each of us to do the things necessary to build our faith, our faith in Jesus Christ, and then to put that faith to action through repentance, baptism, and other ordinances in the gospel. I promise that your life will be blessed tremendously if you do so. I know that to be true, and I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Have a super duper week! Until next week! God speed!

Elder Houssian