Aug. 12, 2013

Aug. 12, 2013

Hola familia y amigos,

     As you may have guessed from my Spanish we saw the G... family again this week.  For those that do not remember, the G... family is the family with the daughter that was baptized a few months ago and the father that baptized her.  We have not been seeing them as much lately because we have wanted them to have the opportunity to do family home evening on their own.  Well we showed up for this one to see how it is going for them.  We found that it is going even better than we had imagined and they do it every week on their own.  When we went there we talked about "arrepintimiento" or repentance.  We did not make it very far into the lesson before the spirit filled the room and the true purpose of this message came into view.  Brother G... admitted to us that in his work situation that he has been having a hard time lately and has been faced with a great amount of temptation.  We talked about what he can do to avoid this temptation and what he should do in order for him to repent so that he can no more have the desire to do that thing.  It has been amazing how far we have seen this family come, and how much they trust us now by allowing us to help them bear there burdens with them.  This has been a huge testimony builder for me on the importance of family home evening and how it can help us with our spiritual progression.  My mother is probably laughing her head off reading this because of how much I used to dislike family home evening before my mission.

     We had the opportunity to hear from our Mission President and his wife this past week and they felt inspired to share a message with us that is something important for every missionary to know.  The reason I share this with you is because I wish that in my time preparing for a mission that I had paid more attention to this.  The message was on how as representatives of Christ it is important to have good edict.  I remember before going on my mission that we had the missionaries over for dinner once in our ward.  During the meal they seemed pleasant, kind, and well-mannered as far as I could see, but after they had left my step father pulled me aside and said when you go on your mission you need to have better manners than that.  I was confused and asked him what he was talking about and he explained that one of the missionaries had used his knife to get some food that was stuck in his teeth.  I did not think it was a big deal but it bothered him.  I realize, now that I am out here, what a problem this poor edict caused.  Because this Elder did something that made my step father uncomfortable, my step father was unable to take the missionary seriously as a messenger of Christ.  Because of this my step father may have not been able to have felt the spirit of the message that they brought with them making this elders appointment much less effective.  During this we were told never to be late to appointments.  Unfortunately though, the meeting went on much longer than everyone could have planned, making us late for our dinner appointment.

     The last thing that I can think of is that I finally, for the first time in my 9 months of being on my mission, have been given the opportunity to leave my area to proselyte in a different area.  I got to go to the area next to mine for a day and do what I could.  It was a fun opportunity because it was the first time in a long time that I was able to be with an elder that was younger, mission wise, than myself.  We had a lot of fun and visited a lot of people that are friends with members in our ward.  One of the people we saw was Bob.  Bob is a friend of Ma, the lady whose garden we weeded.  Bob in fact was introduced to the church by Ma.  Bob is a very active member and has been attempting to get Ma to come back to church for a long time.  So we talked with him about ways to get her back to church.  And we decided that he should invite Ma to the ground breaking for the Connecticut temple.  This is a huge event because the Connecticut temple was actually announced 20 years ago and this is the first step to start the construction on the Lord's House.  So we are hoping that will motivate Ma to come back.

     Well that is mostly everything that happened this week.  Next week we should have some good news with Tim our only investigator who we are seeing next week.

Elder Erb

Clarifications: Step father was not in the room to see the knife-as-toothpick incident.  He was told about this after the missionaries left.  He then encouraged Jace (Elder Erb) that he remember to practice good etiquette when on his mission.  Examples are important.  E.g., Alma's counsel to his son Corianton about the power of one's example remains valid today.  Mike/step father