Dear All,
A few days ago, I was writing in my journal, and I thought, "Wow. We're already in March again." Another thought came to mind, "Wow. Two years has passed since Chris Berry started his mission!" It then hit me that one of my best friends Chris Berry was finishing his mission this week. The time has flown. I just read his last e-mail, and it was great. Thank you, brother, for your example!
It was a great week. Elder Gasik and I have loved our two weeks together. We're working hard, and we had a great week! We found seven new investigators, and we taught 25 lessons--10 of those lessons were with a member present! It was the greatest. We're finding a ton of people, and a lot of them have potential. We just need to do better at inviting people to do be baptized! Yesterday we invited Fredy (an investigator who is the only non-member in his family) to be baptized, but he declined and said he needs more time to prepare himself. Although he declined...it was still a powerful lesson, and it helped us out a lot because now he understands more fully as to why we are there and what we are called to do. :) We found another man named José and his wife Pabla, and they are awesome, and they said they would be baptized...But then later on we figured out that they aren't married. Dangit! But alas! The good news is that we are finding more people and we are inviting people to follow the example of Jesus Christ by being baptized.
The highlight lesson of the week for me was last Tuesday when we taught a lady named Gloria. She's a 7th Day Adventist. She let us in her house, and we were really excited to teach her. However, she let us in to try and teach US. She whipped out a bunch of scriptures from the Bible to try and convince us that the Sabbath is on Saturday and not on Sunday. (Elder Gasik was LOVING it! It was his first lesson with someone like her!) She went on a big scripture change! And out of no where, Elder Gasik tries to share a scripture with her from the Book of Mormon. Nope. She wouldn't let him share anything that wasn't from the Bible. And so we just kept listening, and when she was done, she said, "See. So why do you guys have the Sabbath on Sunday and not on Saturday?" I tried to explain to her that the Sabbath was changed after the Resurrection of Christ, and I even showed her scriptures such as Acts 20:7 to back it up. But she kept saying stuff like, "But God is the same yesterday, today, and forever! So it's still on Saturday." And so I asked her, "Do you really believe that? That God is the same yesterday, today, and forvever?" She told me she did. And then we shared Amos 3:7, and asked, "So God is always going to call a prophet, right?" To make a long story short...We stunned her a few times, but then she tried to tell us that Ellen White (I think that's her name) was a prophet and all this stuff, and we ended up leaving. :)
It was a good experience for Elder Gasik. There's a lot of people like her here. I make it sound like we Bible-bashed and what not. But we really didn't. She wanted to, but we mainly shared a few scriptures from the Bible and bore testimony. It was good.
I've thought a lot about the Sabbath Day since then. After much pondering, I've come to the conclusion that it's not the DAY that's important, but it's what we DO on that day that makes it Holy. Sunday is the Sabbath Day because that's the day that we go and renew our covenants that we made when we were baptized. It's the day we learn and grow spiritually. It's the only day of the week that we really have to rest and do these important, sacred activities. And I know that if we do everything we can to sanctify the Sabbath Day, we will be blessed, and we will be acompanied by the Spirit throughout the rest of the week. I love the Sabbath, and I am grateful for the blessings that we've received as we've kept the Sabbath Day Holy.
General Conference is already here again! I hope everyone takes the time to sit down and watch a few of the sessions. Perhaps a session or two at the church would be a good idea because it's harder to be distracted there. ;) But the most important thing is that we pray and prepare ourselves for the sessions so that we can receive personal revelation during the sessions. Enjoy this weekend! This time only comes twice a year. :)
I love you all! Until next week!
Con Mucho Amor,
Elder Nelson IV
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