"The Work of the Lord"

Hi!

We had an amazing zone conference this week about adversity and the new curriculum that the church has set up for missionaries. Not different lessons to teach but something to help us learn more and become more converted. We read, together as a zone, 3 Nep 11, 2 Nep 31 and 3 Nep 27, which are all about the gospel of Jesus Christ (Faith, repentance, baptism, HG and enduring). It is interesting to see how focused those chapters are on the importance of baptism. We read a scripture (3 Nep 9:20) some where after the destruction before Christ came and how during those three days of Darkness, Christ's voice can be heard throughout the land. It is interesting to note that Christ had just performed the Atonement and had just suffered all the sins and pains of mankind, and the thing he talks about is repent and be baptized so he can save you. He doesn't talk about the pain that he just felt but instead of what we can do to come unto him and be saved. It just shows how important baptism and repentance are to us and to mankind. They CANNOT return to our Heavenly Father without it. They CANNOT gain full access to the Atonement until they are baptized and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. Everyone receives a part of the Atonement which comes as a free gift, resurrection. But besides that... People need it to heal them and help them.

So my wonderful companion, Sister Hilbert, is very inspired (I hope she gets to read that). We were planning on Wednesday and we're going through the ward roster to see what less-actives we could go and see. So we pick a few and give them a call to see if we could stop by. Sister Hilbert felt really good about going to see a certain woman, so she gives her a call and sets up a appointment for that day. When we go over there, we find that she has company, a friend. We talk to him and he says that he isn't really interested in religion and he tries to dodge the topic. So we stop pressing it and continue visiting with the less-active member. Her friend, pretends to not be listening but he starts chiming in with all these different questions about our church. Alot is misinformation that came from TV and movies, but as we cleared those things up, he would ask another question. We continued to not push it upon him but the spirit did the work for us and it peaked his interest. At the end of our visit, we invited him again to church and he said that he would be very interested in coming and even meeting with us to learn more. I love it when I'm just the instrument that seems to do the talking and Heavenly Father is doing the actual work through the spirit. So we now have a return appointment with him at the less-active's house. Two birds with one stone, sweet.

Keep the Faith!

Love Sister Sumsion