May 18, 2015

Hey everybody!

This week has been awesome! My new companion Elder Tibbitts is great! He works hard and effectively. That is something that I am learning more about now. You could be a hard working missionary, go out and knock doors all day, but it wouldn´t be the most effective thing to be doing all day. During different hours of the day there are different activities that are best. Also it is important to always try and involve the members in the work that you are doing. This is something that we are striving to do now. I think will help to bring miracles for us! Members are the key to keeping converts in the church.

This week we had a few really cool experiences. One of them was with a man named Benjamin. He is a little bit older and lives with a lot of other members of his extended family. We met him while we were trying to find a less active member. We explained who we were as missionaries and asked if we could come back and visit him. He was really happy and said that he would love for us to come and visit him. So we left him with a Book of Mormon and told him to read from it. The next time that we saw him he said that he read and really enjoyed it. He told us he felt good while he was reading and we explained to him that it was the Holy Ghost testifying of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. Benjamin just has a humble soul and is so open to learning about our message. It feels so good to be able to teach people who are willing to listen and accept the word of God.

Yesterday and today I was thinking a lot about forgiveness. There is a less active member who had many horrible things happen to her and her family and she harbors so much hate and resentment about these actions. It is so unfortunate to see, becuase as terrible as the things that happened were, she will always carry it with her until she learns to just forgive and turn everything over to the Savior. These things happened about 5 years ago, but when she talks about it, it sounds like it was just the other day. You can hear the pain she has in her heart when she talks about it. I wish that I could just take the burden away from her and make her forget all the pain. But she is the only one that can do that. Even though she was wronged in the past now she is just hurting herself but holding on to these feelings. She needs to forgive and let these feelings of hate and anger leave or she will just continue to suffer. It is so difficult to see someone like this. But we must do as Christ commands and love everyone even our enimies Matt 5:43-45.

I love you all and hope that you have a good week!

Love,

Elder Rice