Tuesday, December 23, 2014

December 22, 2014-Christmas Miracle



Elder Low's Report,

This week I've been reading in Helaman. As I read I was struck particularly by the account of Nephi and Lehi. The whole world had gone wicked, the Nephites were on the verge of extinction, yet having been influenced by the words of their father and their desire to do good, they went out and taught the word. Though the world seemed lost, these two men become in a few chapters the most successful missionaries of the Book of Mormon, converting almost the entire Lamanite people:

Helaman 5
 18 And it came to pass that Nephi and Lehi did preach unto the Lamanites with such great power and authority, for they had power and authority given unto them that they might speak, and they also had what they should speak given unto them—
 19 Therefore they did speak unto the great astonishment of the Lamanites, to the convincing them, insomuch that there were eight thousand of the Lamanites who were in the land of Zarahemla and round about baptized unto repentance, and were convinced of the wickedness of the traditions of their fathers.
I know that there are people waiting for us. They have been prepared by the Lord and touched by the spirit, but if we are distracted by other things we will miss them.

This week our district has really been trying to focus on finding the elect. Our pools have lots of cool people and teaching has always been high since I’ve gotten here, but I felt strongly this week that we as a district had not been putting our full effort in to find the people the Lord was preparing for us, becoming instead distracted with teaching those who weren't elect. We talked about this as a district and committed to do better, and as a result we have seen tons of miracles. One that we saw happened on Friday. After district training we went to go knock doors. We went to the spot we had previously chosen, prayed... and didn't feel good. So we went to back up... didn't feel good there either. This went on for an hour and a bit, as we rode on our bikes further and further away. Finally as it was getting dark we came down a back road and stopped in front of a trailer park. We had said previously that day we didn't want to knock a trailer park but after an hour of searching we knew this is where we needed to be. We prayed, and as we opened our eyes we saw a Spanish man walking. We went up to him and asked him if we could give him one of the “He is the gift cards”. He said yes. He then looked at us a little unsure and then asked if we had a copy of the Doctrine and Covenants with us. We said we did not and asked what made him ask. He said "Well I just finished reading the Book of Mormon that two young men like you gave me a bit ago, and it just... it just really filled me with light." Our mouths dropped. He continued, "I remember reading somewhere in the book (probably in the guide to the scriptures found in the Spanish version of the Book of Mormon) that there was another book related to it called The Doctrine and Covenants, and another called The Pearl of Great Price. After feeling so good reading the Book of Mormon, I can only imagine what is contained in these other books."
This man whose name is José, came to church on Sunday 2 days later, and accepted the invitation to be baptized.

I know if we follow the Lord, and have faith in his power to convince and convert mankind, he will lead us to those we have been sent to this earth to find.

Elder Low


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