Hey Hey All!

   I have to be really super duper quick this week! So let´s hurry and get to it!

 

   This week was so great! So filled with miracles, laughs, and the spirit! What is better??

 

   Something kinda funny I guess...we are teaching a family in a gated community. We always enter through the gates with no problems but they recently started being a little more strict. They were requiring visa, passport, and license...and we had left all of the above in the house! We talked to them for a bit and they were going to make us make the hour walk back to the house to get our identification...but finally I said, "Look...I am white...and all I have is scriptures. May we please pass in?"

THAT DID IT! Haha!

 

   Then a similar experience happened the following day! We did a mini mtc as a stake. It was really cool! We had all of the youth come to the stake center and President Riggins was there - he talked a little bit about the mission and then the missionaries gave lessons and we did practices on how to contact. After all of the practicing was finished we headed out with our assigned youth companions and got to work! It was so cool to see the flock of Mormons on the roll! But we did find a guy seated on a park bench alone and we felt like we should talk to him. I guess you have to know the bad to know the good...because he wasn't feeling up to talking that day. He wouldn't even shake my hand! He said that nobody could help him...that he is lost without a cause...and that he doesn't like talking to people. I was heartbroken :/ He did not want to accept our message but he did accept to take a Liahona Magazine...we bore testimony of our Savior and of His Atonement...and who knows...sometimes in life the smallest words and actions make the biggest impact. I hope that this son of God can find that he has a loving Savior who CAN help...that he is FOUND and that ALL have a CAUSE...a PURPOSE...and that God wants nothing more than to talk to him. It is people like that him who we were sent here to save. To love. To succor. 

Reach out to all, Brothers and Sisters!

 

   The other day was really awesome! I ended up having an interchange with the Assistants! So Elder S went to another sector for a couple hours while I worked with those guys. They are two awesome dudes! Super powerful! It was really neat to work with them!

 

Sunday morning...haha.

We visited all of our investiagtors and less actives and ended up getting to the chapel around 8:50. We said hi and shook everyone's hands until about 8:59...and when I shook the Bishop's hand lastly...he informed me that I would be the first speaker because the assigned speaker didn't show up. So I had to hurry and throw something together! It turned out okay though! 

 

   I am honestly loving every second! 

 

   We wake up every morning to freshly cooked chocolate! There is a Chocolate Factory right behind our house...it smells super good and everything...but I won't tell you the details in how they make it or what they do with it...

All of you girls who just broke up with your boyfriend's wouldn't have anything to eat and all of you guys wouldn't have anything to win over the girl who just broke up with her boyfriend! So we will save the chocolate details for another time! haha!

   Hmmm...I helped carry jello for the Catholics. There was a HUGE Catholic party this past weekend. We went to visit one of our investigators and she was getting ready to leave and asked if we could help her carry some things. So we gladly said yes and we ended up carrying everything she had to the Catholic church so she could get her party on...

I am glad that we were able to help her out a bit...but more glad that because of it she has been a little more receptive to us and our message! 

 

   Those are kind of the details from this past week! 

 

   I was hit really hard with a very valuable lesson and experience this past week that I would love to share! We have been working with a certain family who got baptized in April of 2014. The required year mark of preparation for their temple sealing is up and now they just have to do it...

but something has been holding them back.

   I have had quite a few sleepless nights thinking about them, worrying about them, and wanting nothing more than for this beautiful family to make it to the temple. I was in a state of pain, affliction, and conflict for this family. And I had no idea how we could help them.

   Then a story came to mind. The story of Zeniff and a group of people who are traveling in the wilderness when they are hit pretty hard with affliction, fatigue, and hunger. As they are in this state of weakness "they were slow to remember the Lord their God." Then, I realized that I had been slow myself to remember my Lord and my God.

   In Jeremiah 29 the Lord says, "Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me..."

So I decided to remember my Lord my God and get on my knees. I prayed to the Lord that He might take away my feelings of conflict and grief. More than anything I prayed that this family could make it to the divinely, eternal, and endless powered  sealing rooms of the temple in this life.

   The Lord promises us in the same chapter that "I will hearken unto you...and ye shall find me...and I will be found in you...and I will turn away your captivity."

 

   Brothers and Sisters, my "captivity was turned away". Though I could not see Him...I found Him...and I felt Him.

All there was left was for the Lord to fulfill His promise and "Hearken unto me."

 

   The following day we went to the house of this family and they were happier than I have ever seen them. They were so excited to tell us that they had talked and prayed...and had planned everything for their sealing. The exact date and time.

   The Lord had head my prayer and hearkened unto me. He answered my prayer and more.

 

   I testify that when we hearken to the Lord with all of our heart, The Lord will hearken unto us with all of his power. Sometimes all it takes is to ask.

   Often times God has his angels, blessings, and answers aimed directly towards us from the Heavens above but we never call upon Him to say, "fire" or to simply...ASK.

   Let us all take in how incredible it is to have the King of this world and countless others who is MORE than willing to hearken unto us. To listen to us. To love and to give to us.

I testify that the living Son of the living God is among you...waiting for you to find Him and waiting to bring you out of captivity.

Of this I testify of in the sacred name of the Beloved Son of the Living God, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Elder Noll