May 11, 2015

Hey family,

I never said it yesterday but Happy Mothers Day, Mom!  Thanks for everything you have done for me ever.  I thought about you all through church.

I'm so glad that you are doing stuff as member missionaries.  Can you keep me posted on how your efforts are going?  I would love to be able to share your experiences.  If you run into any problems or find solutions please share those as well.  I'm sure it will help me as I work with the members.

What is the ward mission plan?  Make sure the ward mission leader is aware of your desire to help out.  Be sure to share any good experiences in testimony meeting and in priesthood and relief society.  Of course, the less confident you are in the missionaries the more they will need help teaching investigators.

If I could share a thought I have been working on; We are supposed to devote our time to the work of salvation right?  Everything else is unimportant.  We as members tend to do fairly well at the work of perfecting the saints but procrastinate the other parts, missionary work and saving our ancestors.  We are commanded to do all three.  We shouldn't only do missionary work while we are young nor should we wait to do family history work til we are retired.  We can do all three at any point in our lives if we put in consistent effort (see 1 Nephi 3:7).  We don't need to dedicate too much time to missionary work.  We can see results if we dedicate just a part of our daily prayers to planning for missionary opportunities and then keep an eye open for those opportunities.  For family history work we can spend just a couple hours a week, every week and we'll start seeing blessings.  We don't need a sudden big change of how we spend our time, the power is in the small, everyday things.

We are still working with a bunch of kids.  Not much of note has changed since last week.

We have been doing a ridiculous amount of service this last week.  Tons of basements had flooded and we have been moving furniture and tearing out carpet.  It has been fun but we didn't do much proselyting or teaching.  I'm glad we have had these opportunities to help out though.

I am grateful for you being willing to work and help others out.  Thanks for telling me that I had taught you some things and am helping you.  You rock!

Love you,
Elder Stapley