Friday, April 5, 2013

Happy (late) Easter from PTC, Georgia!!!!

Hey yall,


I hope everyone had an amazing Easter Sunday!!! Man, Easter is like one of the greatest holidays  isn't it? I love Easter Sundays... they're the best, especially since the next week it's followed up by general conference!!!!


So where should I start this week? How about Easter Sunday? Easter Sunday for us was crazy!!!!! Church was a whirlwind!!! We had 7 investigators at church (including a couple younger kids in the one family who aren't considered investigators yet) so we were all over the place talking to them, introducing them to members, etc. We also gave a blessing to an elderly man who had just moved into the ward (normally home teachers do that but he didn't have any yet!). We also had 3 less active families come to church... one of which is admittedly one of my favorite people I've met down here... and I was SOOOO excited to see him at church. It's probably the highlight of my mission so far... I was so happy to see him there. After church, we had double booked dinner appointments... we had one with my family away from my family... which was great!!! French Silk pie and frog eye salad were the standouts in that meal... then we went straight from there to another dinner appointment with our Ward Mission Leader family and a family of investigators (who I love like
CrAzY!!!). That was really great... but man, so much food!!! I was stuffed at the end of the night!!!! It was a great way to spend Easter though... no better day to eat lots of good food (other than Thanksgiving, of course).


One experience from the week that I wanted to share... one day, Elder Schlesinger and I were driving to an area to knock on some doors and to visit some members... we drove past a young man who was shooting hoops in front of his house and I felt like we should pull over and talk to this guy... so we did. We parked a few houses down and walked back to meet him. Sadly, when we got there, he was leaving and wasn't very interested in talking. He left and I felt a little discouraged. Why would I feel that way if he was only going to leave without even talking to us? We turned to go back to the car and Elder Schlesinger suggested we knock on the doors of the few houses that were on the way back to our car... so we did. Turns out that in one of the houses was a family who really needed a prayer at that time. We left them with a blessing through prayer, sang them "I'm a Child of God" (the little girl plugged her ears through that
haha), taught them the first lesson, left them a Book of Mormon and a copy of the family proclamation to the world. It was a neat experience and it taught me that even though sometimes when you follow the promptings of the Holy Ghost, you may not see the immediate results but you're never in the wrong. It may not end up being what you expected in the end, but the Lord has a plan and does everything for a reason.


It was
kinda like the other day when we were driving and we were about to drive over some train tracks and the guard rails dropped down for about 30 seconds just before we got there (no train was coming)... as that happened the thought crossed my mind "The Lord must need to slow us down for a few seconds for some reason". We ended up driving to one of our investigators apartments to visit her... we went over, knocked on her door... no answer... we turned to go back to the car and right as we did... BOOOM!!!! Huge lightning bolt hits right outside of where were standing. Now, I don't wanna make any assumptions... but my guess is that the Lord did need to slow us down for a few seconds for just that reason... he didn't want us getting fried by a lightning bolt!!!


So
ya... you are NEVER wrong following a prompting of the spirit. Even if it turns out differently than YOU expected, it always turns out the way the LORD needs it to be.


Something else I wanted to talk about... Bishop
Corbridge in our ward (son of Elder Corbridge) gave an awesome combined lesson on Sunday... he talked about a lot of things... one of them being "Spiritual Momentum". We build this momentum by doing the small and simple things each day... by being diligent and consistent. Keep doing those small and simple things because they keep adding more and more to your momentum that is carrying you towards eternal life and joy. Another thing... the world is inherently dark. Everything in the universe is dark until light is introduced to it... (think of an empty room before you turn the lights on... or even outer space). So what does this mean? It means we have to choose to do those right things, we have to choose to turn the lights on and to keep them on... every day! Every day the darkness of the adversary is going to be pressing in around you... but make the choice each morning that you're going to carry that light with you at all times... and as you do so, the Lord will bless you with ways to not only keep that light burning, but he will bless you with a stronger and brighter light... you know what else is cool? The more lights you have, the brighter and easier it is to see... so let your light shine forth so that others around you can see better... and be around those that have a light burning bright as well, it will help you to see better too!!! Stand in holy places... avoid those dark places... avoid even the appearance of dark places... there is no "grey area" when it comes to light and darkness... there is only the two.


One last quick experience... I had a gentlemen who answered the door who wasn't very fond of the church... and he really let us have it... eventually, I just started to testify of the churches beliefs in Christ (he accused us of not being
christian) and my own testimony of things... eventually he stopped the attack and listened... afterwards I told him that I loved him and we left. That was it... but it reminded me of some scriptures... 3 Nephi 12: 10-12... don't ever be afraid to stand up for Christ of the church or for your own beliefs... do so boldly and with the authority of the Holy Ghost... and do so with love. People will always be there to persecute you and the church...  but this is his true church, and you never need to be ashamed for standing up for whats right. He will bless you for doing so, and when you do... angels will be there around you.


I love you all so much.... thanks for all your thoughts, prayers and letters (keep them coming!!!). I want to in particular thank Laura, Merilee, the
Brey's, John, Spencer, Tyler, my family, my grandparents and all the cousins!!! Oh ya, and Sara too... ;) ... you REALLY helped me through these last couple weeks... I'll leave it at that, but you really were such amazing blessings to me in one way or another. Thank you so much, keep following and loving Christ and I'll talk to yall again next week. Enjoy conference!!!!!!!

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