Aug 31, 2015,
Dear Family,
The bike used to be Elder Lynch's bike. He gave it to me. Bikes stay with the missionaries.
Satan's been hard at work this week in Corydon. We've had a lot more appointment fall through than normal. Weeks like this happen every once in a while. As I've said before that just means something good is about to happen. Just yesterday we had 2 member-present lessons set up and both of them fell through.
Later today we're going to go to President Sodders house to blow up a missionary's suit. At the end of a mission it's customary to destroy a suit (shirt, tie, pants, and jacket). Most people just burn them but President Sodders offers to literally blow them up for missionaries who served in Corydon. We're blowing Elder White's suit up. He served here about a year ago. Before Elder Lynch left, he and Elder Spaulding got to blow their suits up. I recorded both. President Sodders put a half pound of explosives in the suits and shot them from a distance. President Sodders now has a .50 cal (a really HUGE gun). I hope he uses it today :)
We did have something rather unique happen last Monday. Ms G came over to Pres. Sodders house and we had a family home evening with her. Pres. Sodders talked about journaling and afterwards he passed out basically giant versions of the bare books we used to get at Manila school.
We had a pretty cool experience this week. The sister missionaries contacted someone named Mr R, talked to him, gave him a BoM with some highlighted scriptures, and prayed with him. He told them that he used to suffer from alcoholism but has since turned his life around. The sister missionaries highlighted Ether 12:27 for him:
"And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them."
A few days later Mr R called us, which is extremely rare that someone calls us to meet. When Elder Shelley and I met with him we found that he had been reading Ether 12:27 every day for personal strength. We had a 2.5 hour long lesson with him. That goes WAY over the amount of time lessons are supposed to go but it was necessary for Mr R that we stayed there that long. We taught him L3: The Gospel of Jesus Christ. He just sucked everything up. He loved it. When we extended the baptismal invitation he easily accepted. He knows the BoM is the word of God because of the perspective that verse put on his former alcoholism. He knows that was a trial that was necessary to bring him closer to God. The sad part is, he's moving on Saturday to Charlestown. The missionaries will have to teach him there. :(
"And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them."
A few days later Mr R called us, which is extremely rare that someone calls us to meet. When Elder Shelley and I met with him we found that he had been reading Ether 12:27 every day for personal strength. We had a 2.5 hour long lesson with him. That goes WAY over the amount of time lessons are supposed to go but it was necessary for Mr R that we stayed there that long. We taught him L3: The Gospel of Jesus Christ. He just sucked everything up. He loved it. When we extended the baptismal invitation he easily accepted. He knows the BoM is the word of God because of the perspective that verse put on his former alcoholism. He knows that was a trial that was necessary to bring him closer to God. The sad part is, he's moving on Saturday to Charlestown. The missionaries will have to teach him there. :(
I find what Pres. McFarland said about the Savior suffering for us individually to be very interesting. That's something Elder Lynch said too. He said, "I think time kind of stopped so Jesus could suffer for us individually. I think He was in Gethsemane for a lot longer than an hour." Elder Lynch told me that was one of his personal doctrinal theories. I personally don't know if time stopped or not but if Jesus suffered individually then something special would have to happen for Him to accomplish that.
Keeping the Sabbath Day Holy is something that I've heard is going to be hit hard on in the next General Conference. I guess the church has been struggling with that lately. I like what you said about lists. Labeling things in general tends to mess things up and desensitize you to the fact that everyone's a child of God. Just like everyone's different and everyone is on a different path to perfection. The key to keeping the Sabbath holy is found in the sacramental prayers. I wrote out each of the sacrament prayers 10 times in an effort to improve my handwriting and I learned a lot about what each sentence means. I would urge the whole family to study the prayers and learn exactly what each sentence means. Another thing I learned about the sacrament lately is it renews ALL covenants including the temple ones. Not just the baptismal covenant. When I learned that, the sacrament became a lot more important to me.
Two of my favorite scriptures have been on my mind a lot lately. They relate to a lot of things, even keeping the Sabbath holy. I often think of them at the same time. These two scriptures are how I know if something comes from God or not. They are Moroni 7:13 and Mosiah 2:17. When you pair them up they read: "...that which is of God inviteth and enticeth to do good continually; wherefore, every thing which inviteth and enticeth to do good, and to love God, and to serve Him, is inspired of God... I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God."
When I was younger, one issue I had was I always felt overwhelmed with how huge the scriptures were. I didn't want to read them because I didn't want to start something that would take me years to get through. I didn't realize how small the scriptures really are. It only took me a few weeks to get through the Book of Mormon my first time. That thing's over 500 pages long. In a weird way the scriptures are long and short at the same time. If you're diligent in reading the scriptures you'll have no problem getting through them.
If you're still overwhelmed then use PMG as a guide. PMG was created so the gospel would be extremely easy to understand. The 5 lessons in chapter 3 contain pretty much everything taught in all the scriptures. Start with chapter 3. Read a section then read the scriptures for that section in the "Scripture Study" boxes. Repeat that until you finish the 5 lessons.
Do that and you'll be led in all things. But so long as you're diligent you'll succeed. Notice how that's the 2nd time I've used the word "diligent"? That's because diligence will save your butt in just about everything. If you can master diligence you will be extremely successful in life.
Anyway. Can you believe I'm almost 1/4th of the way done? I've been out for close to 6 months now! Tomorrow will be 5 months since you dropped me off at the MTC. I'm glad to see you're all still happy. Keep being happy. I hope you have a great week!
I love you all,
-Ben
PS - Hey, sorry but I'm running out of time to send pictures. I'll have to send them next week. I'm going to watch a suit be blown up now! :)
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