This is the email letter that we got from Seth today. He writes such great letters but this one has got to be one of my favorites! (The lack of capitals comes from this generation of texters! Seth really is so smart and always got straight A's!)
well family i guess you are all at the beach right now and your probably getting up and making breakfast getting ready for your first full day at the beach. dont worry im not missing out on much, i got sunburned the other day! we were helping an investigator put siding up on his house. he is a great investigator but his wife is very incredula (i dont know how to say it in english sorry) she talks about how she has faith but she's not willing to make sacrifices to live the commandments. so i was reading the epistles of san pedro and he talks a lot about how if we say we have faith and dont live the commandment we are lying. living the commandments is faith. faith is believing that if you live those commandments you will be blessed, even if you cant see the blessings right away. she didnt understand that concept though. a lot of people dont understand why there are commandments as well. i like to share an analogy about it with people. why do parents give rules to their kids? is it to just make a rule to have rules? is it just to see if they will do it? no. think of the rules: be home before dark, dont cross the street, dont use the stove, etc. why do they set those rules? its to protect them and the parents know that if they keep those rules they will be happy. (a robber wont steal them away at night, they wont get hit by a car and bleed out of their ears, and they wont burn their face off) they set the rules so their kids can have JOY. God is the same way, his commandments are there to protect us and to bring us joy. "adam fell that men might be, and men are that they might have joy." God knows us perfectly, better than we know ourselves, dont you think he knows what will make us the most happy? and not only just keeping the commandments protect us, when we live them God will bless us, so why not live them!
transfers are not until next week. i think that we are both going to be staying in sherman. its weird, once this transfer is over i will only have 4 more left. CRAZY
we have a baptism coming up on the 1 of august. im really excited, he is ready. his name is raul. he has change a lot and the gospel has really helped him to find peace in his life. i have a recent convert here who wants to serve a mission. he comes out teaching with us all the time and he loves the gospel. he has a pretty rough past and he is doing every thing he can to fix it. for example he had 4 traffic tickets that he hadnt paid which summed to over 1000 dollars and he doesnt have a job to earn money to pay it. (he doesnt have papers so its really hard to get a job, but he's trying) and so he prayed to know what to do and he felt he just needed to go and sit it out in jail for a few days to pay it off. so, thats where he is right now. he is an awesome example of acting upon the answers he gets. soon he will be clean and preparing to get enough money to serve a mission. he already shares the gospel with his friends and family.
i have been thinking lately why it is so hard for members to share the gospel? i think we just over think it and think that our friends will get offended or something and think that we were only friends with them so that we could get them to go to our church. but when we meet people or make new friends why dont we just invite them to church right off the bat? we are mormons, church is what we do and its who we are. if we just showed it right when we met new people, they wouldnt be offended, they would know right away what is most important to us, and we would keep the commandment of opening our mouths. i think we think its harder than it really is. when people ask "what did you do this weekend?" do we always say i went to church and i learned..... i think you would like it, you should come! what is the worst that they can say, no thanks. its that easy and simple. there is a quote and i dont know exactly how it goes or who says it but its in pmg and its more or less like this "the sign of how converted a person truly is to the gospel is their desire to share it with others."
well family i love you all and i am loving texas and sherman! i do miss the mountains though but its a small sacrifice for the wonderfulnesseres of being a missionary and serving the Lord! have a great week on da beach (i wanna go daoceanondabeach!! -hairdamopia)
