First off, Brother Huber is progressing pretty well; he hasn't
gained a testimony of Joseph Smith or The Book of Mormon but he is sooo
close. Each time we go over, his heart is softened more and more. He is
honestly so cool and loves us! We go to his place like 3 or 4 times a
week and we are hanging out with him today for p-day, so its gonna be
sick!
We went on more exchanges (as always), and had such a great
experience! All we do when we go on exchanges is tract, so we can
find more people to teach. Well on this occasion, I was looking at our
map trying to figure out where to go and I felt very prompted to go to Mississippi St, so Elder Hirz and I went out and started tracting. About
45 minutes into knocking doors, no one really wanted to listen to us,
until we got to this door where a army recruiter opened the door and
started talking with us. At first it was pretty intimidating, just cause
he was all dressed up, and he was talking about how he has shot people
in the face, and he was pretty colorful with his vocabulary, but as we
got talking with him, he kept preaching truth and asking like the most
perfect questions, so we started to tell him about The Book of Mormon,
and he got really interested. It was really cool to see how his heart
softened, and then he said "You know what? Come on in"!!! I'm gonna be
100% honest, that was the first time on the mission that this ever
happened, everyone else just told us to come back another day, so this
was super cool!! So we sat down and taught him the Restoration, and he
loved it! He told us that he doesn't really read the Bible and go to
church, because the Bible is really confusing, and churches hate that he
asks questions, so when we read Moroni 10:3-5 with him, he got super
excited and said "I have to read this!" So then we told him we would
come back and teach him about God's plan for us which answers the
questions of where we come from, why we are here, and where we are
going, and he got really excited and wants us back!! I am honestly so
pumped to teach this guy! He is so cool, and so ready!!
Next crazy miracle. Elder Burch and I have noticed that people get
really scared and intimidated by the white shirt and ties, so we decided
that we are going to go out in service clothes, and knock doors and
offer service so we can soften the hearts of the people here. So we got
some youth with us and went to this house that we saw earlier that was
filled with leaves. Well, right when we got out of our car, this lady
who was out side came and talked with us, we told her about how we were
just going out and doing service, and she said "I have been praying that God would send someone to help me with my yard." So we raked leaves
for 2 hours. This yard was massive, we couldn't finish it in 2 hours,
so we set up a return appointment for today (earlier this morning) and
we got like 20 people out there with us and she was just astounded! She
literally called the news station and tried to get them out! She kept
saying how amazing we were and how we are real Christians. Well come to
find out, he daughter in law is a member and now she wants to come to
church and be taught! It's so cool how the Lord really is preparing
people to hear our message, we just have to go out and find those
people!
Man, the next thing, is we were able to have a full mission
conference in Tallahassee with Elder Stevenson of the 12, Elder Maynes
of the Presidency of the 70, and Elder Parker, our area 70, and boy was
it good! They all had such powerful testimonies of this wonderful
gospel, you could just see it in their eyes and hear it in their
voices, they spoke with such love, and passion, it was incredible! I
really thought that they were all going to be super serious all the
time, but all of them were really humble and down to earth people that
cracked a lot of jokes! Elder Stevenson called Elder Sabin up to the
stand so that he could recite the missionary purpose, and Elder Sabin
was soooo scared, so Elder Stevenson said "Look, you have no need to be
nervous that you are standing next to a member of the 12, it's only Elder Stevenson, I've been at this for about a year, if it was Elder Oaks or Holland, then you could be scared, but it's only me, I'm new at this, so
don't worry." It was so funny! He spoke about how we truly teach
repentance, and he really focused on extending commitments. One thing
that he said was that lessons without a commitment left is a waist of
time. I love that! We are to invite other to come to Christ and the
only way to do that is to invite them to do things that will help them
come to Christ. He also talked about how we need to always be finding
new people, not just when we don't have anyone to teach, but at all times
and in all places. Elder Maynes taught about how influential The Book
of Mormon is and how we need to be using it more in our teaching. It's
amazing how it's just the really simple things that will help out so
much, but we get prideful and think that we know a better way, but we
really don't, its the basic things that will help the most. so the thing
that impressed me the most about this whole conference was when everyone
was going through shaking the general authorities hands, they looked
everyone in the eye with the kindest face and most sincere voice, and
called them by name and told them thank you for serving, it was true
charity! They truly are Men of God who have been called to preach His
gospel and guide His church!
One thing that I have been pondering on lately is the scripture
in Alma 34:32 that talks about our purpose on earth, and how this is a
time for us to "Prepare to meet God", and I have been applying it to
sports, as always. But I was thinking about how athletes prepare all
year so that they can preform well for baseball there is spring
training and football, the pre season, boxers and fighters also prepare
very intensely before a fight. There are so many tools that each sport
has to help you get stronger and become better, for baseball there is
tee work, short hop drills, practice turning 2, pop flys, bunting, cut
off drills, soft toss, bullpen, batting practice, the weight room, and
so forth. As I thought about this, I thought about all the tools
that will help us have a happier life here on earth, and also so that we
will be prepared to meet God; we have the scriptures, church, prayer,
the temple, home/visiting teaching, service projects, youth nights, efy,
general conference, firesides, family history, Mormon messages, and so
on, but why don't we take full advantage of them? It's very simple, "I the Lord am bound when ye do what I say, but when ye do not what I say, ye
have no promise." Do these simple things, and your life will improve,
and you will be able to "stand blameless before God at the last day"
I love you all and am so thankful for all that you do for me and those around you! Keep on keepin on and have a great week!
Elder Schipaanboord
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