Monday, February 6, 2012

Transcription: 6 February 2012


Good morning everybody, this is Elder Record and today is February 6th, and it's P-day. I'm pretty excited about that.

This week was AWESOME!!! I LOVE MISSIONARY WORK!!!! I LOVE THE SAMOAN PEOPLE!!! I LOVE THE SAMOAN LANGUAGE!!! I LOVE THE SAMOAN FOOD!!! I love everything about life and the great plan of happiness that our Heavenly Father has laid out for us. I'm grateful for His tender mercies and for the opportunity I have to make a difference in peoples lives.

It has probably been one of my favorite weeks so far, just because I have an awesome companion and we are doing a lot of good work. This last week we had a day where we got snowed in, so we had to stay and were not able to do any work. It was also transfers, so we weren't able to do anything for the first couple of days.

On Wednesday I took Elder Thorne out to meet with the bishop and a couple of the active members in the ward to kind of introduce him. So really we kind of started on Thursday, but we had an awesome week. We taught a lot of lessons, and we set up a ton of stuff for next week. We have like four investigators who are planning on putting on date for baptism, and they are just progressing awesome. We are excited to be teaching more people in this coming week. Yeah, it's been very exciting (haha). We have been able to do a lot. I am pretty sure every mission has what they call standards of excellence. It's just goals for the whole mission to help the missionaries be able to work toward something, so they can make sure they are working their hardest. With our standards of excellence, there are a certain number of lessons that we should be able to be teaching a week. Pretty soon, hopefully, we will be able to get to that. So I'm pretty excited. We are starting to use a lot of the members; a lot of the youth too, in taking them out with us. So we are excited about that. We might be getting a treadmill (haha) from one of the members who isn't using it. Yeah, we are just meeting a lot of people and getting a lot of potential.

In my studies this week, I was reading in Alma chapter 43 verse 19. It is kind of talking about how Moroni had prepared the people with breastplates, arm shields, shields to defend their heads, thick clothing, and all these things to kind of prepare them individually. Later in the story after they go through the whole ordeal with Zerahemna and surrounding them in the valley, they go back and Moroni prepares the people kind of as groups and cities. He fortifies the cities. So I just kind of took that and applied it to families. In the gospel we need to prepare ourselves individually and work from the inside out. It is most important for us to be prepared individually with armor, you know for the temptations and the hard things that are out there in the world. Then we can prepare and fortify our families so that we have a place of refuge from the storm there. I think it's kind of neat how Moroni goes through the same thing. It says while he's fortifying the cities, in chapter 48 or something, he is also preparing them spiritually. So to be able to not only physically meet the demands of the war and the battles that are going on, but also to spiritually meet them.

So, I'm thankful for my family, and the strength all of you have provided for me. It has made things definitely a lot easier. I'm thankful for the gospel. I'm thankful that when we go and teach people, that it's so easy because it's something that I care about and something that has blessed my life. It's very easy to share that with somebody. It makes it so much fun because a lot of times they have a lot of questions, but the gospel has a lot of answers (haha); so there's never a question that can't be answered. I love that about the gospel. People find a lot of comfort in that, and they are able to go and seek an answer from their Heavenly Father for themselves and know that it is true. We just invite them to make that choice to look for the answer. It's not really up to us (haha), we just provide the people with the opportunity. I am thankful to be serving in this area with Elder Thorne. I'm starting to get a hang of Samoan more. I'm starting to learn more about the structure of everything. I am starting to be able to understand a lot of what's going on. I am excited for this next week! It will be fun!

In the Spanish district that we have, things are going pretty good. It's fun. We had district meeting in Spanish, and I recorded some of it. We went and played some games with them when we were snowed in. I think we are going to start going on exchanges. Elder Thorne will go with people into the Spanish Branch, and I will bring somebody in here and we will work here. It's been pretty fun to associate with everybody speaking Spanish (haha).

Everybody, have a good week. Make sure you all go to Church (haha), and read your scriptures and pray. I love you so much, and I say that in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

See you later.

Love, Elder Record


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