Friday, March 28, 2014

Austin's 3rd Letter...for real!


**OK this may be a little confusing. I messed up and posted his 4th week letter before I even posted his 3rd week! So now we have the real letter from week 3 and everything is in order now! Whoops! :)

Our older group left on Monday. It's been really odd with them gone... It was just the 9 Elders (four from my District; B, and five from District C) but then on Wednesday we received our new group! ...which turned out to be two Elders strong. Having spent a total of ten minutes in their presence, I'm not exactly sure what to think of them. 

In other news, we committed our first investigator to baptism, after getting them to commit to go to church! It felt incredible, even though it was a 'fake' investigator. The Spirit was real regardless. Our other investigator, who we're nearing double digits in terms of lessons (our investigator being baptized is 4 lessons in) is much more difficult. He doesn't feel, doesn't believe, and isn't happy. It's difficult to communicate through the language barrier that the gospel can bring him happiness, and he just has to push through and have faith to believe. 

Today I started working on "Personal Scripture Mastery." Ten scriptures that have great personal meaning to me. The first, and my current favorite, is Alma 5:26:
26 And now behold, I say unto you, my brethren, if ye have experienced a change of heart, and if ye have felt to sing the song of redeeming love, I would ask, can ye feel so now? 

Do you remember when you were baptized?
"Can ye feel so now?"

Do you remember when you were married?
"Can ye feel so now?"

Do you remember how you felt when your first child was born?
"Can ye feel so now?"

Do you remember how it feels to abide in Christ?
"Can ye feel so now?"

I've also been playing around with switching hymn tunes and lyrics. "How Firm a Foundation," and "Away in a Manger" are legitimate examples of this, but I've been enjoying "Praise to the Man," and "The Spirit of God." I've been practicing piano a lot during personal study, because there's literally two other pianists who are male in our branch, and one can't read sheet music, and the other has no interest in playing, so I'm the only one available to play in Priesthood meetings. So, that's been an experience. I've been going to choir practice, and that's AWESOME! We sang "Where Can I Turn for Peace?" last Tuesday, and I realized just how powerful that song it. The first two verses are pleading, questioning, and the final verse is a powerful and true answer to all of life's questions. We watched this video during the devotional last Tuesday with Bradley D. Foster (of the 70) and I almost started crying. The Spirit was just so powerful that night. 

In Doctrine and Covenants, God says more than a few times, "What I say unto one, I say unto all." Thus, when He speaks to one person, you really can replace their name with your own. 
Elder Lynn

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