September 13, 2010

Hey everybody,

Wow was this an interesting week! Elder Flygare and I are settling in pretty nicely! He is an awesome missionary. We tried running this morning. I made it about 30 minutes. haha big difference from what I used to do. He is just one of those guys that always stays optimistic no matter what. I have no idea how he does it but I guess I'm going to learn eh? Nice to hear that Kevin is home.

The adversary came in on Saturday. These 2 Filipino girls, Kathryn and Jaycel, had baptismal dates for the 18th but their mom called us on Saturday and told us things were moving too fast and she wanted to push the date back. It's kind of odd hearing that from a mom who is a member but whatevs... I've learned not to mess with the mom so we're just going to keep visiting and seeing when they're ready. We'll hopefully be able to set up a new date tomorrow when we meet with them so that'll be cool. Saturday was such a frustrating day though. So many times I thought, "What am I even doing out here? Satan has always won with the people we've been teaching. What's the point anymore?" Elder Flygare was probably able to notice but he kept cheering me up and kept motivating me. I'm telling you, this missionary is awesome! Nothing ever seems to get to him at least I think.

We finally met with the Black Canadians! Ericah brought her friend from Kenya and we did a first lesson in the church. It was kind of like a church tour but with the first lesson mixed in. It was awesome and the Spirit was so strong especially in the Christ room where we had pictures of the Savior all over and had "I know that my Redeemer lives" playing in the background. It's amazing how strong the Spirit is when you testify of Christ. We're meeting with them again on Friday. get this, they actually believed the Joesph Smith story! I don't mean that in a bad way. Even Joesph Smith himself said he would not blame anyone for not believing in it for he wouldn't even had believed it if he had not seen it happen himself. But I know why they believed it. The Spirit manifested to them the truth of what happened in the Spring of 1820. His prayer was answered that day. I know he saw Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and I know that he was called to be the next prophet to restore the same gospel Jesus Christ taught while He was on the earth. If Joseph Smith really did see God, then everything we stand for is correct. Good thing he did see Jesus Christ or else I would be wasting a lot of time in Canada.

Well, I love you and as always have a little spiritual message that will help boost you up. The doctrine of repentance is real. God really will remember our sins no more as we confess and forsake them. Often times, we think the confessing is all we need to do. We feel the punishment and the guilt of doing something wrong is satisfactory for the repentance process. Well, that's the first step but the second step is forsaking it. Literally giving up the natural man and leaving behind our weaknesses and trespasses are what makes the repentance process beneficial to us. It's not easy but it is worth it. It's worth having our Savior Jesus Christ remembering those sins no more so that He can once again lead us back onto the path we need to go. I know He is there and that He loves us all so dearly. Never does He want us alone because He knows what that's like. He had no one around Him in the garden, not even His Father's presence. He does not want us to suffer so please, as a representative of Him, take His hand. He will grab us out of that pit we are in and will show us the joys and the blessings that come from this gospel.

I love you all and as always, I am keeping you in my prayers.

Love,
Elder Madsen