Dear Family,
This week was fabulous! I don't know if I included this in my last
letter, but President Teshima has asked all of the missionaries in the
zone to visit every member of their ward and invite them to Stake
Conference (Elder Holland will be there!). So I told the stake that we
should make a flyer to pass out to everyone. So the stake made a flyer
to pass out to everyone! They printed out 3,000 flyer's! so we divided
them up and each ward has 333 flyer's to pass out! We sent around a sign
up sheet in Relief Society and in Priesthood for people to write down
the names of people that they Home teach so we can take their names off
of the list people that we need to visit. We've been working on that
this week and so far we only have 40 families left to visit (a few days
ago we had over 100 families to visit). So we are super excited about
that!
Some more excitement this week! We received a call from a
missionary while we were in a meeting with the Stake on Tuesday. He said
(very comely) "would you have time sometime today to take us to an
urgent care?" I said, "Is it for you?" After he affirmed I told the
stake we had to leave for an emergency. We pull up and he is standing
outside his apartment with bloody paper towels around his hand. His
companion said, 'I swear he punched first' haha. Turns out he was having
some trouble with his disc brakes on his bike and as he was messing
with it his finger got sucked into the brake and cut his finger. We took
him to the only urgent care open, on Martin Luther King Blvd. (sketchy
place) and they couldn't stitch it there so we went to the E.R. So that
was a fun filled day! I'm glad that we went to the E.R. though because
we ran into some nonmembers that wanted a blessing for one of their
friends the previous day. I cant explain the whole situation (it would
take too long) but it was really a miracle that we ran into them, seeing
that it was us who sent the referral to the missionaries in the area.
Brian came to church! He is the Johnstons brother. He seemed to like it and bishop welcomed him from the pulpit!
We also set Sister Worku for a date for baptism; the 22nd of
February. She has only come to church once and she hasnt been reading
the Book of Mormon as much as she should... so its a pretty soft
commitment. but hopefully she can 'man up' and get moving!
I had a great realizatjion a few weeks ago. We were talking in
sunday school about God being our Heavenly Father. And it hit me harder
than it ever has that when I go to be judged I will not want to be in
the presence of God knowing that I willingly sinned against Him. I know
we cannot be perfect but I know that we can improve. That is what we are
asked to do. Improve. Sin can be referred to as 'missing the mark'. As
we come closer and closer to God and understand him more, we get closer
and closer to 'the mark' and farther and farther away from sin. I
realized that with some of the 'small' or 'petty' sins that I choose to
keep doing I am still missing the mark, no matter how small the divide
between the 'mark' and the sin. I thought "Am I going to let this get in
the way of mee living with my Father in Heaven?" Because at that time
that I get to the Judgment, I know that no unclean thing can dwell with
God. So what am I doing to do to willingly give up sin?!
Well I love you all and I hope you have a great week!
Love,
Elder John
"If we do not build our house of salvation on a true foundation, we
will never make the spiritual progress that will prepare us to enter
the Eternal Presence." - Bruce R. McConkie
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