April 21, 2014

This week is a great week to really take to heart our sacrament covenants and "always remember Him," always remember the Easter spirit and that Christ Lives. We had a very busy week, probably one of the busiest since I have been here in Pine and success is rewarding. Starting at the beginning with the main points, we are still teaching John, we gave him a tour of the church and he loved it. All the way through he kept saying, “this is great, awesome, I love this” and that type of stuff. Well, long story short he is having bowel movement problems and can't make it through sacrament meeting without using the bathroom a few times and doesn't want to be embarrassed.. He doesn't want to see a doctor but I think he will be going soon anyways. We are going to give him a blessing tomorrow. We had another lesson with Butch and talked about the plan of salvation. I liked the way the mission president answered the question about handicap people. If they know between right and wrong and can exercise there agency they can be baptized. Our ward mission leaders daughter and husband are visiting, who have been excommunicated and we were over for dinner and had a good visit and scripture and things. After it was neat to hear from the parents that their daughter asked us to come back and visit more. We got to go to the Easter Pageant at the Mesa Temple!! It was great! I'll try and send a few pictures; man there was lots of people there though. One of the people we went with asked for a Book of Mormon as we were walking in and we weren't sure why but he gave it to the protester, it was funny. I ran into Tanner Erickson there, I went to high school with him. He is in the Tempe mission. We love referrals. Always good even if the person isn't interested. One evening we had dinner with a member family (who will actually be driving thru Rexburg soon) and they invited a nonmember friend who has had dinner with previous missionaries before and you could just tell she was expecting us to push something religious on her but during dinner we just chatted and it was comfortable, then after dinner we shared an Easter message and ended up having a great discussion from the resurrection to the plan of salvation to the gift of the Holy Ghost and then the MEMBERS (like you people reading this) took Elder Ballard's advice from conference and invited her to learn more and be taught by the missionaries. And she said yes! But we have to wait a couple weeks till there back from there trip. But anyways you should also take that advice and invite somebody! One last little thing, being prepared is a very big concern for fire danger here in Pine since it has been such a dry winter. We need to be prepared, I know there's a bunch of food storage in the basement but a few guns and a lot of ammo should be in that pile too. Mom, you should get that pistol you wanted a while back! Also what is more important than that is to be spiritually prepared. Would you be ready if the Savior came tomorrow? Even though it's extremely not likely we should all be preparing and be ready. Wish I had time I could tell more miracle stories... Anyways, have a great week! Love Elder Stevenson