1/11/2015
Hello
All!
This week was amazing!!! It was super
spiritual and super exciting!
Thanks Noel for the package and Alison for the letter! I finally
got all the thank-you notes into the mail for the Christmas presents! Haha they
have been sitting on my desk for a week or so now.. I decided it was about time
to send those out!
First off, we had to stop teaching a few of our investigators
this week... :( the Ding family, and Rocky/Melissa. They weren't progressing
towards being baptized and weren't willing to come to church or read
scriptures. Hopefully within the next few months, they will be able to feel
what they're missing! We also found out the Levy's parents took him back to
China. Hey may be coming back soon. I hope so! But we'll see. He's been in my
prayers a lot lately!
Yoyo and Antonio were confirmed yesterday! Antonio is meeting
with our bishop tomorrow to be interviewed to receive the Aaronic priesthood. Then he can
baptize his wife in two weeks! We're super excited for their family!
We started teaching a lady named Shirley this week. She came to
English class for a few weeks and stopped coming after that. We randomly ran
into her at the park this week and asked if we could come by and teach her
about Christ! She seemed to accept the message of the restoration, and was
willing to pray and come to church! She was a little hesitant to be baptized,
but over time as she reads, prays, and comes to church she'll feel more
prepared! She came to church with her two little boys (one is 6 and the other
is about 8 mos) and it seemed like they all enjoyed it! Her son really enjoyed
Primary and wants to come back again!
It rained quite a bit this week, so we got to experience the
"joy" of knocking on doors!! Haha it wasn't too bad, but it
definitely wasn't very effective! People aren't as friendly when you come
knocking on their door asking if you can share a message about
Christ with them. Thankfully, we only have to do that when it's raining!
Otherwise, we walk around and talk to everybody that we see out and about. It's
much better!
On Friday, Elder Hamula (of the Seventy) came to visit our
mission. It was an awesome meeting! We got together with the east half of the
mission and met with him for most of the day. He gave some really good training
on the Plan of Salvation and repentance. We talked about how any
"why" question can be answered through the Plan of Salvation. The
whole purpose of us doing missionary work (the why) is so that when our
Heavenly Father's children return to His presence to be judged, they can stand
clean before Him and be able to stay in His presence. So basically the
"why" of missionary work is repentance. Being able to become clean
and return to live with our Heavenly Father. All of us will return to Him, but not
all of us will stay with Him. It was an interesting thought. I hadn't thought
of the Plan of Salvation in that way. We also talked about how the world has
taken the word "repentance" and made it sounds like a chastisement.
But that's not the way it is to God. It's Him desiring us to turn away from
whatever is distracting us from Him, and turning back to Him. Leaving behind
whatever is holding us back. Letting it all go. It made me really think about
what are the things that I need to let go of. It's not necessarily big sins,
but small and simple things that are slowly pulling us away from our Heavenly Father.
Whether it's music, a TV show, maybe the language we use. It's a lifelong
process of preparing ourselves to return to Him.
This upcoming week we get to meet with Elder Hamula again, and
next week we will get to watch a worldwide broadcast for all missionaries and
mission presidents! It should be awesome!
I love and miss you all lots! Keep going strong and remember the
reason why you're here!
Lots of love,
Elder Warren
Cole didn't send any new pictures this week so for fun here is the MTC Map picture from October 2014 and below is Cole at the Redlands Temple in December 2015.
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