July 26, 2010

Hey everybody!

Good news and sad news... Good news: I'm staying in Lethbridge (I love this area) Sad News: Elder Sanders is being transferred to Cochrane (I love him as a companion). My new companion is Elder Stevens so I will tell you all about him next week (p.s. i cant email you till next tuesday cuz august 2nd is a holiday so the libraries are closed)

So this week was kind of interesting. We weren't able to meet with Carrie but we had an awesome lesson with Jade. We taught her about the gospel of Jesus Christ and the Word of Wisdom. The Spirit was so strong and she was answering questions about how our church views the Atonement in a much more different way than any other church on the earth (In my mind, I was jumping!!!) She cant get baptized till this Saturday though because she drank coffee on Tuesday abd she has to be living the Word of Wisdom for seven days but she wants to get baptized which is awesome! Hopefully Elder Sanders and I get to see her tonight because we really do love her and Elder Sanders is leaving. Jade is moving to Slave Lake on August 3rd (never thought i would be sad on Grandma Madsen's birthday). Jade will get baptized though... whether its in Lethbridge or in Slave Lake, I know that. She has way too powerful of a testimony but I'm worried the adversary will continue putting worries and doubts in her head just like how he put worries and doubts in my head right before my mission.

So on Sunday night, there was a special youth fireside with the coach from the movie "Forever Strong". If you havent seen it, WATCH IT!!! (Rudy is in it :)) There were lots of non mebers going so guess what that means... the missionaries got to go! Coach Gelwix has a son that is serving in the Canada Calgary Mission as well. He had some awesome things to say. He said everybody on this earth has a testimony. Everybody who chose to come to this earth stood before Heavenly Father in the Pre-Existance and accepted the plan he had for us. This should change our view and approach around our fellow men. We need to view them as people who already have testimonies but simply need to be reminded of what they already know. How do you remind them of what they already know? Well, how did the Savior remind people of who they were? He reminded everybody that they were a child of our Heavenly Father through love and service. He continues to remind us of who we are even today because the Atonement was not simply an event in the Garden. The Atonement is infinte and eternal (Alma 34) and is always there for us. How are you going to allow the Savior to remind you of who you are? How are you going to change the way you look at other people knowing that they too have a testimony. It may not be as developed as yours but it is there.

I thought it was a cool fireside. Afterwards we got to shake his hand, and he asked me what I learned. I froze. Talk about a deer in the headlights. I took good notes though and pulled out my planner and told him what I just wrote to you. He's a pretty awesome man. It was a great experience.

K, cool experience. We extended a challenge to a family to invite somebody to learn more about the restoration in 7 days (Pretty bold huh?) but this family's faith is incredible (Wetterstrand family) and they actually came up with someone to focus on. Brother Wetterstrand told us we could stop by there (P.s. dont tell a missionary to go ahead and do something just for the sake of telling them because they'll do it. Why? cuz thats what Elder Sanders and I did.) That afternoon we stopped by his house and his neighbor goes, "You dont want to stop by there! His wife just died so he's not up for small talk!!" Elder Sanders goes, "Silly Satan! Get thee hence!!!" nah im just kidding but we did ignore him and John (the man) let us in and we talked for about an hour and he gave us cookies and pop (new term for me). We talked about salmon (thank you mom for cooking salmon because we talked for about half an hour about how we love salmon and we talked about different ways to cook it and i talked about plank salmon and stuff). Anyways, he said he was very impressed with our church on the importance of families to us. We asked if he would like to learn more about it and he said, "Not really," but hopefully he'll let us keep going over there and talking some more so we can develop a realtionship.

So moral of the story, you have the power to cast Satan away. Had we listened to the neighbor, we would have never been able to enjoy that experience. I love you all and continue building your faith. Read Helaman 5:12 (Awesome scriputre when dealing with Satan.

Love,

Elder Madsen