Apparently there is a 6 month wait to go to the MTC right now? That is crazy. Tanner, don't be surprised if when you get your call you have to wait a while before going out. We might see each other after all :)
Dad, thanks for your thoughts on my expirience that sunday. I appreciate that. I really do, I had never thought of it that way. The insight that I gained that day was pretty profound to me and I shared it when I gave a talk at Sister C's baptism. It was about the savior washing the apostles' feet and how Christ said "if I wash you not, you have no part with me" I can't remember the chapter right now.
Mom- that is so cool about your class! I loved that lesson idea! We might use that. I love how simply you taught about apostasy and restoration I can really appreciate that. In my first 4 months as a missionary the only thing that Elder Tramell told me to work on was "teach more simply" I have tried my best to keep that going. I truly feel that if the savior were teaching your class that day he would have done that same lesson. That was so cool to hear. The spirit was teaching you when you came up with that. That lesson might not seem like a huge deal to you but they now understand something FUNDIMENTAL and it will help them as they grow up, and YOU were the instrument in God's hands to teach it to them. YOU ARE A ROCKSTAR TEACHER!!!!!!!!!! you fulfilled your comission in D&C 50:14.
We are back in touch with Dustin. He is on track for Feb 23 :) YES We were so stressed and worried not hearing from him for a while. I can't imagine being back in Newport News or Richmond again. I am thankful for people who keep appointments and who love to have us over.
So I told you about Kimberly that we had a lesson with last week, she is so cool. We had another lesson this week and we taught the Doctrine of Christ. Faith, Repentance, Baptism, the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the end. We used a whiteboard and an illustration derived from a letter that Claire sent me with the monkey bars on it. We just did it as a ladder. So you are in a hole and you need a way back out (Adam and Eve fell and we need a way out) so Jesus Christ throws you a 5 rung ladder (the Doctrine of Christ) on which you start climbing because of your faith in him. You realize you have some heavy baggage so you drop the bad things you are holding on to as you climb (repentance) you can't get rid of all the baggage yourself and you need to make covenants with God to give you the strength to climb and to really get clean so you are Baptized, then He Gives you the Holy Ghost and you try your best to receive it, then you endure to the end. Ding ding ding! You are at the top! Then you probably fall off a billion times and have to excercise your faith and repent and renew your covenants over and over again until one day he lets you in! We asked her to teach it back to us and she did, beautifully.
We turned to her and said "do you believe this is true?" she said yes. We asked her why and she said, "It just feels right, it's so simple." We said " where do you think you are right now in this process?" She smiled and put her hand up as if she were pinching something tiny "like this far above repentance" We laughed and at this point we all looked at the board and realized what that meant, so we looked back to her and said "what is the next step for you personally?"..."BAPTISM!!!!"...We agreed :)
I love it when you can just ask people questions and they teach themselves. We easily could have said "Kimberly, you are a great girl, you now have heard the Doctrine of Christ and we would like to invite you to take the next step and be baptized" and it probably would have worked but we just asked questions to help her process what we were teaching and she GOT IT.
I love this.
I love youth because they are so teachable. We have only baptized one person over 16 years old in this area and that was Sister C who is in her 60's and amazing anyway. "Ya don't find one of those every dynasty"... we have some amazing youth in this ward who are so ready to fellowship and invite people to church. I feel as though we are helping the church make real growth, because these youth will grow up to be leaders in the church and future husbands and wives and fathers and mothers. The best is when you find a FATHER, MOTHER, and CHILDREN. I think about that phrase often and I always look for opportunities to talk to whole families on the street or at the door. Those are hard to find these days.
LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Elder Skyler Mark Andreasen
p.s. I choose Christ
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