With God, All things are possible!

I love reading the correspondence between Tab and his dad. Tim always has a good uplifting message for him. Here's a portion of his letter this week along with Tab's reply.....

Hi Tab,

In my scripture study this week, I came across a simple scripture in 1 Ne 17.  It is Nephi talking to Laman and Lemuel about their spiritual laziness. He tells them, "Ye are swift to do iniquity but slow to remember the Lord your God." I thought that sometimes I get busy and am slow to remember the Lord. Remembering the Lord is so important so that we can always have his Spirit with us We need to be quick to remember the Lord and slow to do iniquity. Nephi then tells his brothers that because they were past feeling and could not hear the whisperings of the Spirit (because of their iniquity and slowness to remember the Lord), the angel of the Lord spoke to them with a voice of thunder and caused the earth to shake. I thought this was interesting because if we are close to the Lord, he will speak to us through the whisperings of the Spirit. Because of the importance of Laman and Lemuel's mission in taking a branch of Israel to the promised land, he sent angels and loud manifestations to them to get their attention, even though His preferred approach would have been to send the still small voice of the Spirit.

Remember the Lord always so that you may have His Spirit with you always. Listen for the whisperings of the Spirit.

I love you buddy.  Do great things this week!

Dad

Hey Dad,

 

Sounds like you had a crazy week. I feel bad - I've never experienced anything like that. Haha, I can imagine that you would have been on edge for the whole thing. That's tough.

 

Ironically, Elder Vargas and I taught a lesson in High Priests group out of the Lorenzo Snow book (ch.14) title "With God, All Things Are Possible". We weren't well prepared because we have no access to that manual during the week so we had to read and plan during the free hour we had before church. That was frustrating because the material in that lesson is really informative and we could only share surface level insights on it. But it worked out because you know how High Priests are - they talk for minutes at a time. Here's a direct quote from Brother Gruber, "Let me tell you three stories". So we didn't end up teaching much anyway. I learned a lot, though! And if you haven't read that lesson yet, you should. It may help you with all the things you have to prioritize.

 

One of my favorite scriptures is 1 Nephi 17:3, and we have shared it a lot with families. We also talked about a similar topic in PEC yesterday, walking by faith. Brother Herway shared an exerpt from August's Ensign and talked about people who pray for guidance and afterward are still unsure of what they should do... something that I feel happens to me a lot. And the advice was to take the first few steps into the dark, then our path will be lighted. Then he shared a scripture from Ether 12, "dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith." Again, I learned something new.

 

In my letter to mom I'll include some information on how the work is going. Thanks for being a great example of hard work!

 

Love you,

Tab


Hey Mom!

I am good today. We had a really good week work-wise. We met lots of new people and we got a lot of referrals! We had interviews with President Jeppson and he just filled us with his love. Sacrament meeting went really well... ANGE AND ARDING passed and blessed the sacrament!!! Oh that was so great. And they loved it, I was so happy about that. I didn't really get to pay much attention to the talks but the one I did hear was great. Brother Marcelino - the brazilian (born in Sao Paulo) guy who made the most amazing meal ever for us - talked about the blessings of bringing his child up in the church. His wife isn't a baptized and confirmed member of the church, but she probably will be soon. She is an unbaptized member of the church, literally. They come every week and I think she will be speaking next week, haha. Anyway, when I get home dad, I'll have you cook this meal for us cause I'm know you told me you've had it before and have some idea how to cook it. It was the traditional Saturday meal - it has a name - and it was rice, beans (with sausage), collared greens, vinegar, and then fried empanada type things filled with seasoned beef. I was so satisfied with the food he made, and he's a great guy so of course I listened to his talk.

 

We saw Jos this week and she committed to next Sunday as a baptismal date. I was not expecting a positive response when we first invited her, but she said yes and that she'd do it. The only thing that would postpone is if we don't get to visit her enough times to teach her the rest of the lessons we planned to prepare her for a baptismal interview. But, in that case, we would just move it to the following week. we're excited for her - she tends to be really good at keeping commitments and so I'm excited for her to be able to continue progressing in the gospel post-baptism. There's a lot for her to do, maybe she'll think about serving a mission.

 

We picked up a lot of new investigators and we still weren't able to see Camille's family! We went there yesterday and he was busy with some of his friends so he told us to come back on his next day off, which is Sunday. But we did get to teach his wife and she is way more receptive than he is. The kids are so awesome, and we have planned to teach them a sweet lesson so I'm excited for that. If we could get them all to church (which we made a goal to for this coming sunday)... oh man. The ward would love them! I don't know if it's so much that they need the gospel, but the church needs them! They are a great family.

 

No, I'm not that busy with my new responsibility as District Leader. I just have to keep track of the districts numbers on Sunday night and prepare meetings for tuesday. The obligations I have as a leader are just to love the members of the district and to teach them how to do missionary work. Apparently God thinks I know what I am doing... ha! But it's fine, and I enjoy it. No I don't have a new companion and no, it's just an individual calling. So I'm still with Elder Vargas. Yes, I do get to hang out with Elder House a little bit more, but not much. Just at meetings. He's a good district leader!

 

Yes, the mission is going wild! Sort of. Sadly, our zone struggles (zone 9). We have the worst numbers in the mission, and I feel like the missionaries I know are doing good work, but somehow we just don't put out the same numbers as the rest of the zones in the mission. I think it has always been that way. However, I am not mistaken when I say that many of the best missionaries are in this zone. Our zone leaders are the best zone leaders in the mission. Elder Bell (the seven footer) is a wizard, and so is Elder Rodeback. So I hope things can get better - we had an awesome zone meeting last Tuesday and not an awesome week. We'll see how the rest of the month turns out.

 

So I am reading the Book of Mormon again (only the best! just kidding) because it's part of the missions goal, and I am in the very beginning of Alma. I have to finish before Sept 30th, and I'm a little behind. It's difficult for me to finish this challenge because I am a super slow reader and I process information like a million times. I basically have put notes on every other verse, but the thing is I just need to read through it fast. I hate doing that though. Have you already read all of the Old Testament?

 

It's cooling off a little, like today it was beautiful, overcast, and it just rained. But lately it's been really humid and about 85 degrees. I don't like that weather because it's not overbearing but it is the type of weather where I sweat if I move at all. And it's even hotter in peoples houses cause nobody out here has central air. Anyway, I have to close up.

 

Thanks for the awesome letter! It sounds like everyone is great, except Rorie, Caitlin, and Regan cause I didn't hear about them. But Colby is awesome! I'm proud of him. His golf team is great, too.

 

Love you all,

Tab