Noah on a Mission

Dear family and friends, It's been an interesting week. Before I say anything, if you read nothing else in this email, read this article I'm recommending. I just read it today and it's really great. The article is "The Temple and the Natural Order of Marriage" by Elder Bruce C. Hafen, found in the September 2015 Ensign. It is not just about marriage; it talks about Adam and Eve, temples, and sacrifice. Again, it's really good. I ask all of you to give it a read. I've been thinking about missionary emails. We are supposed to keep our emails positive--refrain from complaining and trashing the area you're in, and I get that and I have no desire to do that--but it has the effect, I think, of making us look pretty good. Better than we are, maybe. I probably come across as some kind of spiritual guru who's on top of things. But really, I have many days sullied by difficulties, some external and many internal. It's really hard sometimes. My compan...

Happy Monday everyone, I'm with a new companion: Elder Smith. He's a great Elder, and we're enjoying ourselves. Even doing things I'm normally not into has generally been pretty enjoyable, like tracting. Knocking on people's doors is not something we do as a first resort, and usually I'm glad for that because it's often so unpleasant on both ends. But Elder Smith makes it fun. He's actually into the whole "finding" thing, and he's really good at it, which I love. It really helps me get into it when my companion is good at it. We've already found a good amount of new people to teach in this short week. Some great potential investigators. Something new I learned about yesterday at church was the Orson F. Whitney vision. Orson F. Whitney was an apostle from 1906 to 1931, and he saw a vision/dream of the Savior's Atonement. It's super cool. The vision as he recorded it can be found in "The Divinity of Jesus Christ...

Transfers are upon us! I'm now halfway done with my time here in Las Vegas. My companion Elder Knowles is leaving my area, but I am staying and getting a new companion, Elder Smith. My scripture for you all today is John 10:15-18. They made this section into a  bible video: https://www.lds.org/bible-videos/videos/the-good-shepherd-and-other-sheep-i-have?lang=eng There's incredible power in Jesus's words here. He gave up his life 100% willingly. He had the power to lay it down, and he had the power to take it again. One thing that was hard recently was losing Kaylene, our new investigator, and her family. Everything started off wonderfully and we thought we had a shot at baptizing them. No such luck. She liked everything up until we started talking about "James Smith". Though she accepted a Book of Mormon, she claimed she wasn't "spiritually in a place where she can read it" right now. She found reasons not to trust us in the mistakes we mad...

I hit my one month mark two days ago, which is crazy. The first transfer ends next week. It's been another solid week. I learned a couple things about the Book of Mormon. For one thing, a story with someone named Aminadi is mentioned with the Lord writing on a wall or something to that effect, but it's mentioned as if the story is in its full form elsewhere in the Book of Mormon when it totally isn't. There's a missing Book of Mormon story somewhere! Another thing is the people of Hagoth, who were Nephites who sailed away from America and never returned. All that's said of them is "we presume they were drowned in the sea", but when visiting New Zealand, President Joseph Fielding Smith said to the Maori people present, "I want you to know that you are the people of Hagoth." Not only that, but prior to the Restoration, Maori wise men prophesied that a "true religion" would someday be revealed unto them. Awesome. Did any of...