Week #102

Howdy howdy! I hope y’all have had a great week! I know I always say this, but this week flew by! I can’t believe how fast time is going. I absolutely LOVE being a missionary!

So first off, our thermostat broke  so we can’t control the temperature! It is either constantly blowing cool or constantly blowing warm. So the past few days we have been icicles while sleeping haha. We got it fixed though, don’t worry!

We had some crazy miracles happen this week. One of which happened Wednesday. So we have these two kids in our Area Book who are not members of the Church and were being taught by the missionaries a few months back (their mom is a member). They were set to be baptized and were coming up on their baptism day, and they were super eager to be baptized. Some things happened with another family in the ward, and both of the missionaries were transferred out, and the new missionaries lost contact with them, and so the baptism didn’t happen. The missionaries that came into the area tried and tried to contact them, but nothing happened. Then I was transferred in, and Elder Gardner and I couldn’t get in contact with them either. So Wednesday (June 13th) Elder Hernandez and I stop by to try and visit them. As we do so, the family pulls into their complex, parks, and comes and talks to us. They were super excited to see us, and we were super excited to see them. We went in, sat down, and immediately Joyce (the Mom) says “My kids need to be baptized”, and we about fell over with excitement. So we set up a time to come back and start teaching them some more, and helping them get on track to being baptized! We are very excited for them!

Another exciting thing happened this week! We had our lesson with Shannon (our neighbor). We made some cookies (Mom you would be proud!) and brought them over to them, and had a lesson. The Spirit was so strong. Shannon asked a lot of questions, and she said she wants to come to Church and wants her and her family to grow closer to God. It was. An amazing lesson! She also said she wanted to feed us, so we set up a day next week to go over and have dinner and a lesson with the family. We hope to get them on track for baptism soon!

This week for my spiritual thought I wanted to share with you something I came across in my studies. It comes from the Book of Mormon, in Mormon 7:5, which reads;

“5 ... ye must ... repent of all your sins and iniquities, and believe in Jesus Christ, that he is the Son of God, and that he was slain by the Jews, and by the power of the Father he hath risen again, whereby he hath gained the victory over the grave; and also in him is the sting of death swallowed up.”

I love this verse. It is something so significant. Here, Mormon is giving his last words, his final plea. And in that final plea, the thing he chooses to write is to believe in Christ. He sees his people completely destroyed, gone, and he urges us today to learn what his people had forgotten, that Jesus Christ is our Savior, He loves us, He knows us individually, and because of Him we can repent and be forgiven of our mistakes, we can be resurrected, and we can return to live in the presence of God, and be with our families there, forever. That is the entire purpose of the Book of Mormon, to help everyone learn of Him. There is so much power that comes from this book. It is the keystone of our religion. It testifies of Jesus Christ and His ministry, and helps us learn about Him and what we can do to be more like Him. I know that the Book of Mormon is true. I know that Jesus is the Christ, and that through Him, we are all able to return to live with Him and our Heavenly Father again. I invite each of you to read this book sincerely, and then ask God if it is true. I promise, as a representative of Jesus Christ, that you will receive an answer, this book will change your life, and you will find answers to your questions, and know true joy and happiness. I say those things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Have a spectacular week! Until next week! God speed!

Elder Houssian