Stake Conference
Parents,
There aren't going to be any baptisms this week. Dang it! J and K
are still struggle with smoking. We have tried everything that we have seen
work in the past. They seemed to think that it would be easy since they had
quit before and I worry that they didn't properly "fear evil". Proverbs 14:16
says "A wise man feareth, and departeth from evil: but the fool rageth, and is
confident." We need to work on that godly fear. Heavenly Father is clearly
showing that He is aware of them and wants to help them though. Saturday
morning we were able to go and visit them with our stake president and the
visiting GA, Elder Stacey. We just sort of sat back and watched. These
men spoke with such power. They gave J and K a blessing to help them
quit smoking and talked about temple and family history work. They instructed
us to follow up and teach the doctrines of redeeming the dead more in depth. We
came up with a revised plan to help them quit smoking and we set them to be
baptized on the 10th. Working with J and K has been one of the coolest
experiences of my life. The hand of God has been so apparent throughout our
meetings with them so far. I can't wait until they can be clean through baptism
and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
Our other J isn't getting baptized right away either. He started canceling
appointments and hasn't made any progress toward quitting smoking. I guess he
had a friend that moved in with him who is a bad influence. J's member
friend said that he seems to be moving backward. We were a little bit glad to
hear that it is his friend that is causing a regression though; we were worried
that it was the switch from the sisters teaching him to us. Hopefully we can
catch him before things get too out of hand and we lose him. He has a desire to
change his life but doesn't seem to understand what it will take.
We had stake conference this week. It was so good. Elder Stacey was the
visiting GA. He was just barely called as a Seventy last conference. He did a
great job. He kept surprising people by calling them up to give a testimony.
One lady told how a ward council had blessed her family and afterwards he got up
and called upon each member of that ward council to get up and share their
experience of how they had helped her. At one point the topic ended up on
missionary work and I got very worried; we were sitting up front and he knew our
names. Didn't get called on though, thank goodness.
We are still working on memorizing scriptures. It has been amazing how
much of a difference it has made in our teaching. I always knew what the
scriptures said and could teach the doctrines in them but actually being able to
recite them and find the references has given us more power as we teach.
One thing I wish that everyone could understand is what our attitude should
be toward sin. Sure we might have a desire to be better and to overcome it but
do we take sin personally. We should actually fear and hate the sins that we
struggle with. In the struggle for our soul we shouldn't just be calm and
patient towards sin in our lives. When we fall short in dealing with a sin that
we are struggling with it should be personally devastating. Sure we can still
be forgiven but every time we sin we lose blessings that could have been ours
and have to bear a weight that we could have avoided. Each sin doesn't just
hurt us but also the people we could be helping. When we are personally
invested in conquering sin then we will overcome it so much easier. It is part
of aligning our will with God's. To Him it is no small thing when we are
disobedient.
Big news: Ms. M called this week and said that she wanted to be
baptized on Saturday. We had to tell her that it wouldn't work because of stake
conference. Also, she hasn't been to church in a while and we aren't sure she
understands the significance of baptism. But I'm dang excited that she felt
ready. She has been really busy and out of town almost every week but things
should start slowing down now. Yay!
I love you,
Elder Stapley
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