I think I am beginning to sound like a broken record but it
was another great week and I have way too many things to write about!
I will start out with someone new that we started teaching
this week. Her name is Ale (Allie) and she is an inactive member of the church
that hasn't gone for a very long time. Her friend is one of our ward
missionaries and invited her to have a lesson with us! It was an interesting
but very good experience as we were able to teach her about prayer and then the
next lesson about the Atonement. She now wants to come back as she felt the
spirit for the first time in months. It was a great experience! She is in Mesa
for this week with her family.
Things are going well with Larry! He is awesome and
continuing to progress! We had a good week where we were able to meet with him
frequently. He was able to come to home evening at bishops on Monday and had a
good experience there. We were able to watch Joseph Smith: The Prophet of the
Restoration with him and that was also a great experience. He had to get
surgery on his ear this week because of a bad ear infection so that was
interesting. He is fine and he is actually able to go home to Louisiana this
week to spend spring break with his family! He hasn't seen them for about 8-9
months so it will be great for him!
Nicole is continuing to progress and she is so awesome! She
had here baptism interview on Tuesday and of course was ready! She is so ready!
We were also able to have a few good lessons with her this week before she left
on Thursday! It was cool as we were talking about faith in Jesus Christ and she
said how much her faith has grown since we started meeting with her. She
believed in Christ before as she was Catholic but it was cool to see how much
more she knows now! She will be gone until probably Saturday or so we won’t be
able to teach her much this week but we were able to get her baptism all
scheduled and it will be a great program! I am so excited!
We were able to have Zone training this week with President
and Sister Killpack and it was great! They told us that ours was the most fun
and happiest zone training in the mission! We do have a.........interesting
group of missionaries here! I love them! They are a lot of fun! Good group of
guys here. We had an interesting experience with a Lutheran guy that just tried
to bash with us for about 20 minutes. It was sad. His religion and the things
he thinks he knows are so backwards and don't make sense. We didn't tell him
that of course but it was sad to see how unhappy he was and how he tried to
feel better by tearing us down. We were able to answer all of his questions and
I think he left madder because he couldn't tear us down. Bashing is awful. It
makes everyone angry! Also I had a crazy experience/miracle involving two cars
and my leg. Through a series of unfortunate circumstances my left leg was
pinned between two cars this week. Yes I have now been hit by a car on my
mission. The miracle is that I didn't even have a bruise! It hurt so badly and
my leg probably should have broken but I was protected and I didn't even have a
bruise to prove it happened! Only a limp! Ha-ha
The best experience this last week has been with Tyler. I
didn't have time to write about this last week but Last Saturday we had a
lesson with her about weapons of rebellion against God. Basically anything that
is keeping us from Him and the Spirit. We had her write on a paper that only
she would see all of the things that are keeping her from feeling the Spirit
and then we committed her to refrain from all of those things for a week. She
did it and the change in her this week is amazing! It is a complete 180 and
night/day difference! She had the best week of her life! That is how she
described it! She was so happy this week! Everything went right for her this
week and she came to the conclusion that it was so because of her sacrifice and
submission to God's will. She described her change with tons of examples. I
will share one that highlights a scripture that we told her about before we
started this process. Tyler loves music! It is her favorite thing in the world.
Her music is...hard music and not very conducive to the spirit. She has a lot
of concert t-shirts and that is mostly what she would wear and most of what her
closet is full of. All of these are black. One of the craziest things is that
she doesn't want to wear black anymore! She only wants to wear light colors
because she is happy! She has also stopped listening to most of her music
because "it is garbage and nasty and I don't feel good when I listen to
it". The Atonement is real! This change that Tyler has gone through is
described in D&C 88:67-68 "And if your eye be single to my glory, your
whole bodies shall be filled with light, and there shall be no darkness in you;
and that body which is filled with light comprehendeth all things. Therefore,
sanctify yourselves that your minds become single to God." This
sanctification and enlightening process has been the theme of my time up here
in Thatcher! I love the Atonement! I love being able to see it working in my
life as well as those who we work with! It is the coolest thing in the world!
Though there were many more experiences this week that will
conclude my email! I hope all is going well with all of you!
Elder Banner
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