WOW

Dear parents,

 

You may be thinking 2 things because of the subject of this email. You might be thinking, "oh crap, let's see what happened this week...." Well, I assure you, things have happened this week. Let me start off by saying that it has been one of the most spiritual weeks of my mission, and my life thus far. I don't even know where to begin... Well, I'll start with Zone Leader Council on Friday. We talked about 3 Nephi 17 and 18. You should read those and study them. Christ said that His time was at hand, meaning that it was time for Him to go back to the Father. Well, as we read on, the Nephites want Him to stay a little longer, so He does. And what does He do with His limited time? He does 3 things: 1. shows them how to pray, 2. institutes the sacrament, and 3. gives them (the apostles) the power to give the Gift of the Holy Ghost. That should give us an idea of what is important to Christ and God. So, Elder Christensen and I have been doing all that we possibly can this week to rely on the Lord and we have prayed SO much. It's been incredible. We are now seeing miracles...

 

So, on Saturday, we went to see a part-member family. The ladies name is Jane (not her real name) and she isn't a member but her husband is a less active member. As we pulled up to the house, no car was there. Everytime that I've knocked on their door and they weren't home, their car wasn't there. We were about to drive away when Christensen asked me what I wanted to do, I felt that we needed to knock, so we did. Joe (not his name), the LA member, was home. We went in and sat down with him, his wife was gone. We found out that their marriage is struggling a lot. We talked a lot about how the gospel will bless familes and bring them closer and whatnot, but somehow we ended up on prayer. We read from 3 Nephi 18 where Christ tells us to pray in our families that our wives and our children may be blessed. He talked about how much prayer means to him, and he shared a spiritual experience that he had with prayer. We talked about why it was important. At the end, we invited him to offer a kneeling prayer with us. Joe is kind of a squirrley guy, he used to be homeless and an addict (he's sober now), but he accepted. We kneeled on the ground in his humble single-wide trailer. We knelt there in silence and we waited, and waited, and waited... I was praying so hard within my heart for Heavenly Father to grant him the strength to call upon his Father's name. Finally, after at least 10 minutes of kneeling in silence, Joe said he couldn't do it. His eyes were tearing up, he said he didn't feel worthy. We comforted him and told him that his Father loves him, and that he is a precious son of His. He gave it another try. We knelt there in silence once again; we waited, and waited, and waited. Again, we waited for about 10 minutes. Finally, after much prayer in our hearts by Elder Christensen and myself, he managed to utter the word "God." You could not believe the spirit that flowed into my heart at that very moment. I can't describe it. The joy and love that I felt for this man, my brother, swept over me. I could hear Elder Christensen sniffling because of his joy and the tears running down his face. I sat there smiling as I witnessed this broken down man, pray to his Father in Heaven. It was the most sincere and heartfelt prayer that I think that I've ever heard. I can't really describe the spirit that I felt, I felt as if I had a heating pad on my chest. I was hot, but I wasn't, my heart was full. After he closed, we embraced and we shed tears of joy. He felt his Father's love, and he knew it. It was amazing.

 

That is my first story, and my second one happened right before we came to email. I guess to give a background on this, we have been praying our hearts out to find a family to teach. We had an appointment at 6:30 to see this lady named Lana (not her real name) and she's married to a VERY LA member as well. We went over and sat down with her and her husband. Lana's 15 year old daughter was home that I haven't met before, and apparently she has very serious emotional problems, specifically with very negative thoughts, and she doesn't have a very good relationship with her mom. We invtied her in and Lana said that we could help her. They told us all that has been going on and such. Lana eventually left because of some words that were said, the daughter who we will call Carly, said that she (the mom) doesn't ever listen to her when she needs to talk. Carly feels that Lana doesn't really care about how she feels and doesn't want to help. Lana left crying, and we were left with the husband, and Carly. Carly almost left, but we got her to stay and we, again, talked about prayer and her relationship with God. We read Alma 37:23-25 (I think). We explained it. As we went on, her countance changed, and she felt the Spirit. She told us that she wants to be forgiven of all that she's done in her past (she is very cute and has a bf and all that good fun high school stuff). We talked about how she can have that, so we talked about repentance, faith, the Atonement, and baptism. As we talked about Christ, she just changed, I've never seen a 15 year old girl change like that. We then talked about baptism and invited her to be baptized this month on the 28th. Her eyes lit up, and a smile flashed across her face, and she accepted. After that moment right there, I took a moment to talk about the Spirit and about how she felt. She couldn't stop smiling, her eyes were so bright and had a twinkle in them. I, again, was filled with the spirit. My joy is full, I can't express how happy I am and how grateful I am that God loves me, and that he does listen to my prayers and answer them. It's incredible. The church is true, without a doubt. I can never deny these feelings, ever. I'm so grateful to be here! I wouldn't change these experiences for the world.

 

Well, that was a great start to an email, huh? Let me finish with boring stuff. Elder Christensen is from Monroe, UT. He's a huge wrestler, he wrestled in States. He has a weird southern accent, apparently it's common to southern Utah. He is an EXTREMELY self-motivated person. He will get things done with or without me. He is the most obedient missionary that I've seen so far. It's crazy. It pushes me for sure. He is a sweetheart though, he has a great heart. What else do ya wanna know?

 

I'm glad you liked my blog, pops. How do I sound all grown up? I'm not the best at writing. Oh, today was P-day, and we spent all day with my some of my favorite members, who I plan on visitng a lot throughout my life. We cut and split wood all day. Man, I love splitting wood! I LOVE LOVE LOVE it! It was awesome. Good day.

 

I love you both, have a great week! I look forward to hearing from ya'll again. 12 months, crazy... Don't forget to study 3 Nephi 17 and 18! And, there is a difference between studying and reading, think about it! :)

 

Love,

Elder Edwards