January 8, 2013

Dear Mom,

 

Thank you for your email, it brightens my day to hear how everyone is doing. Thanks for the addresses and advice on having charity. I think you are right that a lot of my attitude is dependent on my expectation of different types of people. President Cook says that the choice to accept the gospel should occur in the heart of the mearer and not in the mind of the missionary, so I need to make sure to love everyone more and more like Christ does and give each person I see a fair chance to accept His message.

 

This week was pretty good. My companion and I presented a training to the missionaries in our zone and already we have seen miracles happen as they focus on finding those who will receive them and giving everyone a fair chance to accept the message. I am starting to feel like I am part of the area, but not like Laguna yet, which makes sense.

 

We started teaching a woman this week, and this is borderline CrazyRadar, but she is 72 and single and lives in an apartment filled with 40 years of clutter and old things (I seem to have a knack at finding old ladies like this) and we helper her get a little more organized and taught her about the Book of Mormon. She loves Jesus and is very catholic. One thing I was super grateful for was the help of the spirit to let us know what we should give to her to do. We asked her to read 3 Nephi 11 which talks about the Savior. The I had just happened to grab a pass-along card on the way out the door and it just happened to be the one about the Book of Mormon and just happened to have the picture showing Christ's visitation to the Nephites. So that is her bookmark now.

 

Some others we are teaching:

RE: A man who is pretty freshly out of jail and wants to learn about and obey god's commandments.

 

DE: A man who feel away from the church as a teenager and his wife and kids are not members. The 9 year old daughter woke up one morning a few weeks ago and told her daddy that she wanted to go to church.

 

CW: A recovering alcoholic who was baptized 5 years ago and needs the spirit in her life and to pray and build a true relationship with heavenly Father.

 

TP: One of my favorites, a 10 year old girl who was baptized a month or 2 ago and lives with her legal gaurdians and they are just really nice and funny, so we share messages in the form of stories or games.

 

CC: She just got baptized in December and her family does not really like that. She is 18 and wants to serve a mission. She is speaking in stake conference the Sunday! We are helping her pray daily and develop a habit of reading consistently.

 

Those are a few of the people I am blessed to share the gospel with and to learn and grow from. It really strengthens me and my commitment to follow the Savior when I see these people making changes in their lives that bring happiness. I can talk until I am blue in the face about how good the gospel is, but what will change someone's life is when they apply it. Through observing this mighty change have I gained a true appreciation of the goodness of God. he has given us a way to live and have joy because He loves us.

 

We have been able to find lots of people who are prepared to receive the gospel as we are obedient and open our mouths as the scriptures say. that is a big focus of mine right now, just 'open your mouth", the Lord says, "and I shall fill it". I know that that is true. We have found lots of great people as we heed and trust this promise.

 

It is a little different when I apply this to a future part of my life (marriage) when all I need to do is be obedient and keep my mouth shut!! But that is not for a while.

 

The Lord loves us so much. Thank you for sharing the many blessing that you see in your life and I hope you know that you are a blessing in my life!

 

Have a great week

-Elder Chandler