Sunday, January 4, 2015

December 28,2014

Hey!

First off im jealous of the Fiesta Bowl. 

This week was a week for me. but not because of the visible success we had this week, actually there wasn't a huge amount of that.  We met with our investigator who is the walking hospital. He is having some struggles with life even more lately. When we met him this week he told us multiple times how he has had thoughts of suicide this week. We talked to him a little bit about that and then Elder Bodan and I decided to share the He is the gift video. He really liked that and it really set the tone for the rest of the lesson. It set the tone so much that we gave him a baptismal date and he accepted the day. The only problem with that is because he is really sick, he cannot come to church easily and to null the pain he turns to smoking and drinking. We will be continuing to try and prepare him for baptism over the next coming week so he can get baptized in January. 

We have another college student who we met with, but he was just really sad that his dog was in the hospital so he didnt listen to us much.He was just really sad. Finally we also picked up a new investigator who, as Elder Bodan tells me is golden. I have not met him before because I was on exchanges when we had an appointment with him.  

So this week was a good study/pondering week for me and i have a couple questions for you. I am reading in the Book of Mormon in 2 Nephi and I have noticed that one of the patterns in the Isaiah chapter is Repentance. I really felt this week that I need to understand the role of repentance and how we use it better. not because I have some huge sin in my life, but i feel like I will have to explain it and use it better. Maybe I will just have to talk to you in person to make more sense, but I will say it briefly. So.. we all repent and have to keep repenting because we are human and make the same mistakes over and over again. One part of repentance is feeling Godly sorrow,forsaking the sin and asking for forgiveness through Prayer and maybe talking to your bishop. so my first question would be when does the sin become something you have to confess? I know you confess the big sins, but If i feel Godly sorrow for commiting the sin and ask for forgiveness is that full repentence or must there be more? Also because we are human we will almost always make the same mistakes, therefore commiting the same sin we just felt sorry for and promised not to do anymore. That is where the infinite atonement comes in, because He suffered we get unlimited second chance. We just have to STRIVE to be perfect. Because we always are making the mistake over and over, we are never really forsaking the sin. Sometimes after I make the same mistake again i get frustrated because I question if I truly repented in the first place. so How do we truly hate the sin and leave it behind us? As you can tell I had alot to think about this week.

So the reason I will remember this week is because it was a great time to embrace the Spirit of Christ, not Christmas. I dont know if I will ever have a really good chance to do that again but I want to make it a part of my Christmas every year and life every day. I Love this Gospel so much! It makes me be a better person, man, missionary and future husband and father every day! Transfer Calls is this week so we will see what happens. im pretty sure im staying with Elder Bodan!

Love ya Lots!!
Miles

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