Week 44: PERSONAL SPIRITUAL GROWTH

Dear Family and Friends,

This week was a good week. I would say it has been a week full of PERSONAL SPIRITUAL GROWTH instead of spiritual growth for our investigators. But, haha, why should I complain. I've had lots of experiences this week in which the Lord has opened my eyes and my understanding has expanded so much. The scriptures and connections I made this week strengthened my testimony of the scriptures and the true power there is when we study, meditate, and apply! :)

So first with an insight of mine connected with an experience: we are teaching F. and he is living with his partner and his 10 year old son. The other day he got in an argument with his partner and he was having problems so he didn't go to church with us. I was a little fed up with everybody's excuses for not reading, praying, or going to church. Even if they were valid excuses, I was a bit fed up. Anyways, I was reading the scriptures and I found a scripture that taught me a lot about why many bad things happen to good people. The scripture is in Romans 8:17...It talks about how we need to suffer with Christ in order to be co-inheritors of the Kingdom of God with Christ. That taught me a lot about how I need to look at my struggles and also about how to teach people to not throw the blame at our Heavenly Father, rather thank Him for our hard times and pray for strength to keep going. Anyways, we talked to him yesterday and he had read the BofM and prayed that day and a lot of the situation had settled :) It was a neat miracle!!!

The next scripture that opened my eyes is a scripture in James 2:19-20... In this chapter, James teaches that faith without works is dead. In these two scriptures, James seals his teaching by saying devils and demons also believe in Christ, but they don't act or follow Him. Will we do likewise? In verse 20, he asks: "Do you need anymore proof that your faith means nothing if you don't act?" I love that! We see so many times here that people say, "Oh I believe in Christ. Yeah I don't go to church and I smoke and I don't agree with what my church teaches, but I believe in Christ." It's so sad because in the end, their so called "faith," isn't faith. It's what the Lord referred to when saying, "Not all who cry out, Lord, Lord, will enter into the kingdom of my Father. Rather those who do the will of my Father." I applied that to myself...If I really believe, why don't I show it by striving to do the things that are hard for me :)

So two weeks ago we received a referral from a priest in our ward, B. So we went by to visit and we had a great lesson with her mom this week. We taught the first part of the Restoration and really focused in on the Prophet, the Holy Ghost, the blessings of the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ, and the Book of Mormon. Her husband returned from Peru yesterday so we are excited to see if he will be on board and if we will be able to progress rapidly with this family :) We are praying for them. There are three kids, a newborn baby, and little 4 year old girl, and the 12 year old. Hopefully everything turns out and we can get this family prepared and ready to be baptized soon!!!!

Anyways, that's about it for this week! =) Love you all, take care!

Elder Adam Bushman

“Missionary work isn’t the only thing we need to do in this big, wide, wonderful Church. But almost everything else we need to do depends on people first hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ and coming into the faith. … With all that there is to do along the path to eternal life, we need a lot more missionaries opening that gate and helping people through it.”

—Jeffrey R. Holland

“We Are All Enlisted,” Ensign, Nov. 2011, 46–47