Planting a Seed

Happy Belated Birthday! So what did you eat at the restaurant? Did you write down the names of the meats, or at least the dishes? We eat quite a lot of mashed potatoes here, but it´s not exactly the same as in the United States. What else did you do for your birthday? Hmm, Christmas... I could use one or two more of those insoles (Pro Foot brand). I´m wearing through mine pretty fast. Other than that, maybe some sushi, enchiladas, and a cinnamon roll :p. Those are probably the foods I miss the most, and peanut butter, vanilla ice cream from Coldstone. Speaking of food, did Matt tell you that I requested how to cook fried rice? I tried once and it turned out terrible, edible, but terrible. I think I have to cook the rice first, and then throw it in a pan of oil...so if you could moogle it that would be nice :D!

Okay, since I didn´t write last week, here are the spiritual experiences for last week. I thought of an interesting way to look at gaining a testimony of the Book of Mormon. To commit someone to be baptized we are now using the first paragraph and the last two paragraphs of the introduction of the Book of Mormon. The three things that it teaches us to do to gain a testimony is to read, meditate in our hearts, and then ask God if it is true. That can be compared to planting a seed. First, in order for a seed to grow you need to plant it, but you also need to plant it in soil that is fertile and ready to help a seed grow. Then, what does a seed need to grow? Sunlight, plenty of consistent time with the sun shining on it. Those two aspects are controlled by mother nature and don´t require much effort on our part. But the third aspect a seed needs in order to grow is water, and if we want a specific seed that we plant to grow, we need to put in the effort to water it. That is where our faith comes in, by believing that if we water that seed it will grow and bear good fruit.

We also have been teaching one investigator for several weeks now and he has gone to church two times. Last week we had the opportunity to teach his girlfriend too. We invited her to listen and we started teaching the first lesson again. The amazing part came when we started reading the introduction to the Book of Mormon. We read the part about asking God if it is true and then René asked if he could say something. Then he read Moroni 10:4 and related that to what we need to do and how we are going to receive our answer. I was amazed to realize that in that moment he receive revelation from the Spirit and that is how he knew what scripture to share. It´s amazing to see how the spirit can change people over time as they keep the commitments we give them.

Another day we went to an investigator´s house whose husband up and left her and her daughter without a reason. We went with a member from our church who used to be an Ancient in the Jehovah´s Witness church and it was amazing to first, see how well he knew the scriptures and also how well he could talk with the people. That lesson was amazing and I have grown in a testimony that if we use the members more we will have more success in finding people and in helping investigators progress towards baptism.

Last experience, we found a man who is living with his girlfriend and has a baby. We taught him once and the second time we went back he invited us in and offered us empanadas and was overjoyed to to listen to us more. He doesn´t understand much, actually he says he doesn´t understand anything, but he told us that he wants to improve himself and wants his child to grow up and do what we are doing and be like us. He is reading the pamphlet we gave him and now is going to start reading the Book of Mormon, even though he doesn´t understand anything. I can really feel the Lord´s love for him everytime we go over.

My time is just about up and thanks for all the letters I have received from you. Love you and think about you, occasionally :)

Con amor,
Elder Arrowchis