How's the Traalydaaly clan doing?! B-ray and A-town and P triple o G pat! Congrats on the wins boys! It's always fun to imagine all y'all out there on the field coaching, playing, having a great time, and jokin with each other. Haha man sounds sweet. I'm sending home a package this week so you should get it by Saturday or so and yes yes I found my camera! Tucked up under my seat. Speaking of which we've been getting some good snow these past few weekends. This last weekend we got our driving privileges taken away across the mish because the conditions were so bad so we spent all day shoveling snow. All I gotta say is there is no way in the name of Budha that I'm ever living in a place where it snows. Zona's gonna be my home state forever!
Haha, it was good though, we got to meet a lot of our neighbors and establish friendships with them.
There was one time I was was running while shoveling the snow and bam! I caught an uneven part of the driveway & the handle came up and hit me sqaure in my chin (not too surprised about that one because it's be more surprising if it didn't catch it with how big of a target it is) and a few slip and sliding moonwalk dance moves later I'm face down in the snow just chillin. So bad!
This week was pretty hard though as in we had a lot of appointments set up with potential and former investigators and not one of them went through. There was one day in which we had 6 appointments lined up. We were all jazzed and stoked and one by one every single appointment did not go down. So we spent a lot of time trying to talk to as many people as possible. Speaking of which there was one guy who was way disrespectful, talking all this ish and throwing the last of his drops of coke on our white shirts, just way way disrespectful to say the least. Found out he sells dope, heroin, x and pretty much anything you can think of ...
One of the highlights though came from last Monday. We taught Carrie who is probably one of my favorite people we are teaching right now. She's awesome! We invited her to be baptized and she accepted. I seriously can see this lady be the Relief Society President in a few years. We had an appointment with her tonight but something came up so she has to reschedule but this week we are going to set her with a date so I'll let you know how that goes! This last week I gave my first baptismal interview as well for a guy named Joe. I loved it soooo much. It was really really special to be in a position to see the changes this guy made in his life to follow the example of Jesus Christ and to receive all the accompanied blessings. He was so humble, so meek. Just really really wanting to do good. Loved it!
I thought alot about the nature of God this past week. Who He is to us and who we are to Him. I know that He is my and our loving Heavenly Father. We are His children. I was thinking about the one doctrine or principle that the adversary could misconstrue the most, to have the greatest effect on us, and I'm pretty confident that the answer could be 'the nature of God'. There are soo many times throughout the day in which I hear sooooo many people's views about who or what God is and it's sad to me that people are lost or confused in that knowledge.
God is our Father in Heaven. He has a body of flesh and bones. He wants us to come unto Him and to help us, just as our earthly fathers do. We can come unto Him in prayer and communicate with HIm. He does hear our prayers and He WILL answer us. That is the very first principle we teach. The very first article of faith says "We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost." That's why the restoration is so important. In his own word's Joseph Smith said, "I saw a pillar of light, exactly over my head, above the brightness of the son which descended gradually until it fell upon me. When the light rested upon me I saw two personages whose brightness and glory defy all description standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other, 'Joseph, this is my Beloved Son, hear him..."
It is my testimony that God knows each one of us by name. He knows us intimately and wants the best for us. The love He has for us is more than we can comprehend. This knowlegde of who God is to me, my Father in Heaven, and who I am to Him, -- his child -- has done more for me in my life than any other principle. The peace and comfort that comes with this knowledge can't be found anywhere else and I know that is why the adversary tries to misconstrue & contort this eternal truth. I Iove you all and encourage you to open your mouths and share this knowledge that you have with someone who doesn't know, who is confused, or who is going through the trials and temptations of this world on their own. I love you all and appreciate everything you do for me! Have a great week and know you mean to the world to your two missionaries!
Elder Traasdahl
No comments:
Post a Comment