Well Thanksgiving was a blast! I really have never eaten so much in my life! I was almost beyond my breaking point! Let’s see, we had three dinners thanks to the Blevins, Richardson's and Daliro families. We spaced it out, we had a dinner appointment every two hours-- it was so much food! We had a great Thanksgiving though, it was a huge success. Our last dinner appointment was with almost all nonmembers, it was super fun! It is sad that it was my last Thanksgiving on the mission. :(
Our week went good, we had a lot to accomplish, with the meetings we had and the exchanges we went on. This transfer we have had a tough time getting our friends to attend church. It has been hard because we do all we can to prepare and make plans to get them there--what it has come down to is their personal agency. That is what we are working on here, we know if they came, it would bless them tremendously!
We have been working with a few less active families in the ward. We have had some great lessons with them. One family, specifically, we have really grown to love. The Crosse family is from Mexico, they are converts to the church and the mom and dad have four kids. We had a powerful lesson with them just teaching the basics, family prayer and church attendance. They were so accepting to our commitments--we promised the parents, especially, that if they taught their children to do these things they would know to do them for the rest of their lives. We all knelt down to pray after our lesson; the father gave the prayer and we left. The next morning they came to church! All of them; it was so exciting. You could see how the gospel is already blessing their family. I can’t wait to go visit them this week.
Okay, so here is a funny slash disturbing story! So at church we received a phone call from a less active member that I had never met before. She wanted us to bring her the sacrament. So we talked to the Bishop and he thought it would be nice for us to do that, so we did. We took a member with us and we drove over, knocked on the door and as we were waiting, we smelled something awful. . she opened the door and rushed us in and it hit us like a wall. The stench of this place was horrendous! It was probably the worst condition I have ever been in. IT was bad! But we endured, gave her the sacrament had a brief, I mean Brief thought, then we dashed. It was so bad that we went home, ripped off our clothes and burned them. Just kidding, we threw them in the washer. But we had to shower to get the smell off. It was quiet the experience! Next time we will let the young men's go! Haha
I found a scripture I recently learned a lot from, (Moses 7:26)
26 And he beheld Satan; and he had a great chain in his hand, and it veiled the whole face of the earth with darkness; and he looked up and laughed, and his angels rejoiced.
I have noticed more than ever how hard Satan is trying to tear apart families and individuals from finding the joy in the gospel. It is a hard world we live in, but do we look at what a great opportunity we have? It is transparent that Satan throws everything at us to try to put these chains on us. We need to know this! We need to realize how we shake these chains and overcome this kind of mocking.
We know the only one to break these chains is indeed our Savior. In fact, he has already broken them. Unfortunately, we sometimes put the chains back on. Ponder this scripture out of the Book of Mormon. (2Nephi 1:13 & 15)
13 O that ye would awake; awake from a deep sleep, yea, even from the sleep of hell, and shake off the awful chains by which ye are bound, which are the chains which bind the children of men, that they are carried away captive down to the eternal gulf of misery and woe.
15 But behold, the Lord hath redeemed my soul from hell; I have beheld his glory, and I am encircled about eternally in the arms of his love.
There has never been a greater need to do all you can to access the power of the Atonement. This is where we are set free. I know that, I will always do all I can to live that.
Keep the Faith!
- Elder L. Kaleb Bingham
No comments:
Post a Comment