June 8 Visit with Elder Bednar

Mom and Dad-

This week has been so great. It was so amazing getting trained by Elder Bednar for 3 hours! We got there 2 hours early so we could get front row seats in the chapel. I have seen him speak in different settings before, but it has never been like this. We were 10 ft away from an apostle who had prayed and received specific instruction for us as. Before he said anything, he said for us to not write down anything that he said. He told us that what he said really didn’t even matter, but that each of us would receive specific tailored revelation; a lot of which would would have nothing to do with what he was even saying. It was so true, I found myself sitting there many times watching him, but I didn’t even know what he was saying because there was just a flow of knowledge coming in from somewhere else, it was pretty amazing. The whole training was about how we need to seek learning by faith and how we need to help others do the same. If you read his talk, “Seek learning by Faith,” you will know a lot of what he talked to us about. He talked a lot about how we are all agents to either act, or be acted upon, and that Faith is acting and doing, not just sitting and listening. He taught us how we need to not just act upon our investigators but rather help them to be agents and act for themselves by helping them to make and keep commitments. I think his coolest point was that there are 3 different substances that make up Faith: 1.) Faith as the assuarance of things hoped for 2.) Faith is the eveidence of things not seen which are true. 3.) Faith is the principle of action in all intelligent beings. As we take a few steps into the dark and act, we have an assurance that heavenly Father will illuminate the way, and as we are walking, we look back and see that he has in fact illuminated the way, which is the evidence of things that are not seen, and as we see the evidence, that gives us more assuarance and the cycle just keeps going. You should really read the talk because I probably just murdered everything he said. Anyways, the 3 hours with Elder Bedinar gave me such great perspective on my mission, and in my life. We were all able to shake his hand afterward which was pretty neat. I haven’t washed my hand since, and I probably never will.

The rest of our week went really well. We exceeded all of the goals that we set for ourselves so that was good. Oh yeah, I got hit by a car on Wednesday, so I was pretty stoked about that. We were going pretty fast down the side walk facing the traffic, and this big black truck pulled out trying to turn right, and I could have sworn the lady saw me because it was a cross walk and she stopped before she turned, so I kept going, and so did she. Nothing too bad happened. It knocked me about 5 ft off my back, but I landed on my feet and jogged it off. The Wheel and Chain got knocked out of place on my bike, but we fixed that. So don’t worry, my bike is ok! I just received a couple minor flesh wounds so im ok too. I wish I could see the look on moms face right now. On Sunday we had 3 unexpected investigators show up to church and they actually stayed for the investigators class after sacrament, so we were very excited about that. We are teaching a couple of solid people right now. Cindy Love is still doing really well, and Reed also. We started teaching a part member family recently and the Dad is the non member. He seems to be really interested. He came to Church yesterday wearing nice slackes, a white button down collared shirt and a tie. Things are going really good lately for us.

Im kinda bummed that Elder Gooch is leaving next transfer. Everyone in our apartment is so cool. We have such a good time, but everyone works really hard. This has been the greatest time of my life. But there will be more great companions an experiences in the future so it will be fine.

We got in a pretty good bash towards the beginning of the week. Some guy was just telling us how the book of Mormon is false because there were no horses in the Americas and that DNA tests show that the American Indians don’t have any Israelite blood in them. We sort of tore into this guy and we both felt bad afterward because he really didn’t have a leg to stand on. It is fun to bash for a little bit, because it keeps you polished on the doctrines, but it just doesn’t feel good and the spirit is never there.

I haven’t ever heard of that school either, it sounds pretty interesting. Brett is going there you say? I will have to check it out. He just sent me an email. I cant believe he is already dating again. Crazy. Im excited to hear his homecoming talk. Im probably not allowed to listen to it on the computer, so yeah just send it on a cd or something.

Well that’s pretty much all I have for you guys, I hope I didn’t bore you. The rest of the week was all just tracting and visiting, so I wont bore you with all that. I love you both so much. And I love everyone else too! Thank you so much for everything. Your all in my prayers! I love you Mom, I love you Dad!

Love, Josh