Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Dear family and amigos,

We've been having a great time here. We're teaching a lot more still and been having a great time. This ward is a lot different than when I got here and it's been crazy to see how much it's changed. The members feed us now and come out to lessons with us more. That's a big step up. I'm not sure what changed about the ward but I think it was really that we put more trust and faith in the Lord and so He was able to take over and move his work along. If we don't leave a place in this work for God he won't be able to help us. We need to involve Him in the work in order to have success. God respects our agency so much that he will allow us to stumble around for a while until we turn over our will to his.  So the faster we can stop stumbling around and turn our will over to his, the faster we'll be able to see all those promises in the scriptures come true. It's as easy as that!

A cool experience we had this week was from our Recent Convert Michael, whose niece passed away this week. He said that because of the things he's learned from the lessons and the Book of Mormon it was a lot easier for him to deal with everything. It warmed our hearts to hear him say that. We knew that the Spirit truly touched his heart. It was so cool because he took a long time to really be ready and he was willing but things kept coming up that were holding him back. We could have just dropped him and said "he's not ready now" and just left him alone but we knew that his heart was where it needed to be and that if we kept on helping him and encouraging him he would really be converted. And now he is and we have no worries at all about him.'' 

Don't give up! God provides a way. Don't look past the simple scriptures! Nephi's example of going and doing may be the most quoted scripture amongst Mormons but that doesn't diminish the meaning of it. Go and do, the Lord will provide.

I love the opportunity to serve. My missoin has been so great so far and it's flying by way too fast! I feel like I just got here and it's so crazy how fast time flies. Gotta make every day count!

Keep it real

Elder Sanderson