Monday, July 20, 2015

NOTE: 3 NEW PICTURES! CLICK ON THE PICTURES TO THE RIGHT TO VIEW THE PICTURE ALBUM.

This week was the first week in a while we have really begun to see success. Still no baptisms, but we have got a couple really good people that we're reactivating and one investigating. Barry, who is a less active, served a mission many (20) years ago and kind of fell away many years back. We just recently got in contact with him and he's progressing at an amazing rate. I even got to teach him the most remarkable lesson we get to teach, Lesson 3. Really, when you're teaching this lesson (The Gospel of Jesus Christ) to an investigator, you've got to keep it simple and the way Preach My Gospel teaches it, or it'll go straight over their heads. With those who are familiar with the gospel, there are so many doctrinal points that you can go into that really make the lesson far more powerful (IE: Explaining more aspects of faith, delving into repentance, baptism, the Atonement and repentance all as one, the holy ghost, and ultimately what enduring to the end really means). It is, by far, my most favorite lesson to teach when I can really help them understand. It's kind of like teaching diving to a group of middle level swimmers (to use a swimming metaphor).

We also went on a campout with our branch this last weekend. It was wonderful to see a few non-members there as well as a few less actives and many members from both the Mesa and Phoenix branches.

One really cool experience happened there when two 11-year-old kids went missing. I, of course, blamed it on the mountain-dwelling, kid-snatching, cannibalistic hermits, but it turned out that the two of them went exploring and got lost. The girl, finding out that they were lost, turned to the boy, who is a nonmember, and asked if he had any words of wisdom. He turned back and said that he had none. They walked a bit further than the girl turned to the boy and said, we should say a prayer. The boy has like no idea what to do, and then the girl says, "You should offer it." After briefly teaching him how to pray, they pray together. They were found 10 minutes later by the police. A wonderful lesson about prayer for each and every one of us.

Have a wonderful week everyone!!!

Elder Sands