August 12, 2013

Dear Mom,

This week was a great week. Last Sunday, we received a text from our Bishop about a returning less-active member and how his fiancee wanted to learn about the Gospel. So on Monday we called up the less-active member. His name was Jorge. He was born in Columbia but he was raised in Ecuador and came over here to the United States later on. He was baptized when he was littler but now he wants to come back to the Church especially with his fiancee and he wants to raise a family in the Gospel. We set up an appointment for that night and we taught her the Restoration of the Gospel. She thought that it was pretty interesting and she said that she wanted to start reading the Book of Mormon. This is what is really difficult about a Spanish-speaking mission in the United States. She speaks English better than Spanish and he speaks Spanish better than English. But he speaks English better than she speaks Spanish. So we obviously taught her in English so she would understand better, and she's reading the Book of Mormon in English. So our question is, should they go to Church in English so she understands better, or should they go to church in Spanish so he understands better? But she already has people she knows in the Spanish program. We're still trying to figure it out, haha! But we run into this problem a lot. Usually it's with kids though. We just have to teach the kids in English and then they go to Church with their parents in Spanish. Oh the joys of state-side Spanish. But aside from that, she's really interested in learning as much as she can. We visited them again on Friday and she had read six chapters in the Book of Mormon which is a lot more than people usually read between the first and second visit with the missionaries. We were impressed! She likes it. The second visit, we taught her the Plan of Salvation with a special video at the end. We watched with her "Earthly Father, Heavenly Father" off of lds.org. From what we've seen so far, she doesn't really have a relationship with Heavenly Father, and that makes it difficult to follow Him. So we're trying to help her establish that relationship and gain that desire. We just have to overpower her with the Spirit. :) She'll get baptized though. I'm sure of it.

Also, this last Thursday we had interviews with President and Sister Jeppson again. Great as always! He asked how my family was doing. I told him how scary it was to think that my little brother is driving soon, haha. He didn't talk to me about anything about going home so I'm pretty sure I'll just come home as scheduled! Right before your birthday.

This week has been pretty full of finding. We found five new investigators this week which is slightly above average. We were very excited! We should be finding about the same this next week. We're just trying to stay as busy as we can. We're trying to find a bunch of less-active members on our ward list and that's helping us find new investigators. Many times those less-active members don't live there anymore and so we just contact the people that do live there and then we start to teach them. It's pretty awesome. Most of those new investigators that we've found so far are just in the beginning stages. Nothing too huge from it yet, but we are finding and we are staying busy! Missionary work is the BEST when you're busy. It's painful and long when you're walking around all day doing nothing.

It sounds like everyone had a good time for Kyle's birthday. Next one, yours! And I'll be home for it too. It better be a good birthday mom! I can't wait to go up a tour SLC again. I've been remembering a lot of fun things about SLC.

You should send me a list of what classes Kelsie has. Is she taking any cool classes or all generals?

Q of the W:

1.  Alma 32:34.  I don't understand why, after someone dies, they wouldn't realize that God does exist and wouldn't not want to learn the gospel.  Wouldn't it be like a 'duh'?  I've never been able to understand this.

I've thought a lot about this question. In the scriptures it talks about the Gospel being preached to the dead. Well, we know that the Gospel is faith, repentance, baptism, the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. Well, those people in the Spirit World need to take all those steps as well, including faith. As Moroni explains faith is believing in something that is true and not seen. So if they, in the Spirit World, have to walk by faith, that means that they won't see God. Now there's the scripture in Alma 40:11 which says that we shall go back to to the God who gave us life. There was something I read about that from commentary from a latter-day prophet and I can't remember what exactly he said, but he said that it doesn't mean that we will go back to the presence of God. Because the presence of God is the Celestial Kingdom. That would mean that when Christ died and went to the Spirit World, His visit there was just as marvelous as His coming in the Americas. Now that doesn't mean that the Spirit World won't be cool. I've heard that the Spirit World, at least in Paradise, is WAY better than this world. Plus, we won't have to fear anything. It's not like we can get hurt or anything. We won't have a body! I'm still studying it out more and there's some scriptures that I could use, I just don't have much time..

2.  Do you ever find people who have researched our church online and they have it all wrong?

Not really. Usually it's, "I heard you Mormons do this...." If they do some real research they'll find lds.org or mormon.org and those are really good websites for people.

3.  How would you explain 'faith' to someone?

I like to make sure people understand that faith includes action. If we don't act on our faith, then it's just a belief. Faith is believing in something that's true and then acting on it.

Love you mom! Good questions!

-Justin