"Commitment is doing the thing you said you would do, long after the mood you said it in has left you." George R. Zalucki


Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Sister Bassett,
We had another miracle just last night. We went out with our ward mission leader to go teach Manuel and Stephanie. They have a baptism date for the 16th, but they aren't married. So we went over, and we were going to teach them about the plan of salvation, with a focus on eternal marriage. When we asked him if he would get married he just kind of sat there not saying anything. Because he is only 18 years old, he is a little worried about it, he is pretty nervous about making a desicion so big. So we just started to try to explain it, which sometimes can be hard, because I never have been married, but I was able to use the example of my parents, and the testimony that I have through their example, and some where along the course of our discussion, something changed. He said yes to getting married, but he was also excited about it. He had questions about how it was going to be, or who would do it. It was so amazing to see the change within just a few minutes.  And what made the diffrence, I don't think that it was anything specific that we said, but it was just pure testimony that was able to help him feel comfortable about the desicion of being married, and also baptized. It was really interesting to see how the spirit can work on some one in such little time. It will be really exciting to have that baptism on the 16th.

Elder Gleaves

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When I was 14 or 15, I had a teacher that prided himself on being a thinker. We had some enlightening discussions in his classroom. He helped me ask some great questions that led to tremendous answers that still guide me today. We agreed on many things, but were at odds on a few. One of them was religion. I had a lot of respect for this man, but it amazed me that someone who claimed to be open minded was blind to just how closed minded he was when it came to God. He was always challenging my faith. He considered my beliefs to be a sign of my weakness. His claim was that unless it could be acknowledged by the 5 senses, there was no proof that God existed. I struggled as a young person to help him understand that he was limiting his understanding to what he had personally experienced, cutting himself off from other possibilities. The best that I could do was to try and help him understand how I knew; that things of the spirit could only be understood and perceived by the spirit. Years later, I still don't have a better answer to this one fundamental question, but I face the same dilemma. This blog is dedicated to preserving stories and experiences of missionaries in the Arizona Mesa Mission both during and after their formal missions. Some stories are fun and light hearted, but others are of a spiritual nature. The blog forum is so convenient, yet the format is limiting. There is more to these words than letters on a page. To truly understand the messages requires not only an open mind, but a soft heart.

After all, "A man's reach should exceed his grasp, else what's a Heaven for?- Robert Browning"

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