Forgive and Forget!

 Monday January 18, 2021

Hello everyone!! I hope your week is going great! My week has been fabulous. The Vargas family that randomly came to Church last week are doing great! We had 2 lessons with them this week and they are so eager to learn! They read the Book of Mormon a lot and are so prepared. They have a few Word of Wisdom problems but I don't think they will have any trouble with that. They also have told us that they are planning on getting married, but they want it to be a memorable event so they want to plan well. They are so ready to partake in this gospel and it's actually crazy. They basically are members already. They are the nicest and most sincere people you will ever meet. 

Another miracle happened this week!! Another non member just walked into Church!! It's actually crazy the miracles and blessings God is giving us here. So yesterday we had dinner with a family, and the non member that walked into church was there!! He is the Boyfriend of the daughter. We ended up teaching him the restoration and he is super interested in our church. We are hopefully going to be able to put Sarah's son Daray on date this week!! He was super apprehensive, but we got him friends with the youth in our ward and they were asking him about when his baptism is and everything. Then he looked at us and we were like, uuhhh we don't know it's up to you. Then he was like, oh ok let's get it taken care of. So basically we're pretty sure he wants to get baptized now. So we need to have a lesson with him this week and figure all that out. Other than that there's nothing else. Still a few people we are teaching but nothing too crazy. 

A great lesson that I learned this week that I feel some people may need to hear is that you need to forgive yourself of your past and forget. We watched a missionary devotional this week of Elder Rasband. In it he told us that he felt that some of us need to forget our past and move on and reach forward to our new life with Christ. He used the example of Paul. Paul wrote in Philippians 3:13 "Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,"

Think of Saul and who he was before Paul. He caused great suffering to the Church, participating and watching the destruction of the Church, killing anyone that believed in Christ, and he did any manner of wickedness until the day he saw the Lord on his way to Damascus. He had a complete turn around. Now think of what he said in this scripture. He forgot the things which were behind him, and reached forward to a better future in Christ. If he never could forgive himself and forget the things he did in the past he would never have become the person that Christ knew he could become. Because he chose to forget and forgive himself, we now read and preach his words from the New Testament. Think of all the teachings that we learn from his epistles. Now relate this to your life. Whatever it is that you hang onto in the past, I'm pretty confident it doesn't compare to Paul. Let go of the past and reach forward to a new life in Christ. Let the love of Christ change you. Live as Christ would, develop those Christ like attributes and be perfect even as he and our Father in heaven. Strive to do your best and think of Christ in every deed. Humble yourself to hear the spirit and live according to the commandments. 

Love you all and carry on!!

Pics:

1.we put a fridge in the other elders study room haha

2. Last district pic

3. You like jazz??