Your Father Loves You!
Wow! This week has been crazy and it flew by. This 7 week transfer (they are usually 6) has flown by and we have had some miracles happen this past week.
Wednesday: We had been asking our Zone Leaders for more opportunities to serve and they got back to us with a great one. There is a thing here called JustServe. It is a community run website where you can go to sign up for opportunities to serve. We now have 2 weekly service activities. On Wednesday we started service at a ranch. This specific ranch just opened up in February and they do horse therapy. The head of the Ranch worked with special needs kids for 40+ years in schools and now has her own ranch where they focus mainly on deaf children. The kids will read book to the horses and make many new friends. It's incredible what this lady is doing. So our part in all of this is that we do some of the ranch work. Cleaning the stalls, grooming the horses and in the winter... shoveling snow. It's so much fun!
Thursday: Our other service we do at Goodwill every Thursday. We help them go through what the store can sell and what they can't. There are some crazy things that get donated to Goodwill!!! We had dinner with a member family and I won't mention their name for safety, but every time we go over there we seem to learn something. We always have powerful and usually pretty deep spiritual conversations.
Friday: We got a call from the people we had dinner with the night before and asked for help in a blessing. There was a lady there who was struggling at work and needed some comfort and Elder Johnson gave a wonderful blessing and after we discussed it a little bit. Elder Johnson said something super powerful that she took to heart. Heavenly Father doesn't give us trials to test us, He gives them to us because he TRUSTS us! It seems so obvious when it is said, but if you think about it a little more it really is something special. After the blessing, the male of the home asked for a blessing which I was able to voice. For those of you who don't know a priesthood blessing comes from someone that has the authority. When a blessing is given, it is not my words, it is words from our Father in Heaven that comfort and bless the person receiving the blessing. While I have not given very many blessings, the ones I have given I have seen a little bit of that persons life and my favorite part is seeing our Father's love for that child. It is incredible.
Saturday: We had dinner with one of my favorite families. We discussed missions as well as the Atonement. They also have a son on a mission. They are such an incredible family and while the lesson went very well, afterwards, they had us stay for a few more minutes so they could talk to us about how much having us in their home means to them. I was so grateful to see that my efforts are making an impact on someone's life. This family is already active, but they have made changes in their life to come closer to Christ. This I think has been my favorite part of my mission is seeing members and less-actives come closer to Christ.
Sunday: The miracle of the week. There were so many people who we are teaching at church because an older couple came from from their mission from Europe. It was incredible to see people who we stopped teaching even come to church for this event. However, there was one lady who was at church. She hasn't been to church in 2-3 years and I set up an appointment to meet with her Thursday! The coolest thing is that last week Elder Johnson and I were trying to plan out the upcoming week and her name came into mind (we haven't tried to contact her before) and we scheduled to stop-by to see her Thursday. When I made the appointment, I didn't realize that was the same day we had scheduled to stop-by. Coincidence? I don't think so.
Our Ward Mission Leader also pulled me aside and told me that we just had a new member move into the ward who hasn't been to church in a while, but she knows she needs to return. It sound like she is a single mom and has 4 kids, 3 of which are not baptized but are of age so we could possibly have 3 baptisms this transfer which would be incredible because this ward hasn't seen a baptism in about a year. (Not too long, but too long for a missionary willing to work hard here!) :)
So, just an update, as I stated earlier, this transfer has come to and end which means that Elder Johnson will be leaving me. He will be moving to a different area about 45 minutes south of me. I will be getting a new companion tomorrow afternoon. His name is Elder Boss. I am super excited to meet him. We will be together for at least the next 6 weeks. I will be staying in the same area and thus in the same house for those of you who send me letters. :)
Spiritual Thought:
This weeks thought is very simple and something that a good friend of mine from the MTC asked me for help on. She asked me basically, "How do I know that Heavenly Father knows ME? There are so many other people out there? How do I know that he knows me and hears me?"
I had done a lot of research on this but decided that I needed to do a little more.
From what I found basically, our Heavenly Father is our Heavenly Father. He is just as much a Father to us as my dad is to me. The reason he is able to know us so well is because he spent eternity with us before our life here on earth. He knew us. He loved us and although we didn't have bodies of flesh and bone, we were his spirit children. He knows each and every one of His children. He cares about each and every one of us. Many people think that God has given up on them or that they are too far gone for him to even try to help them. Some believe that Heavenly Father wants some of us to be lost. James E. Talmage in his book Jesus The Christdiscusses and clarifies this topic very well.
"Let not ignorance and thoughtlessness lead us into the error of assuming that the Father’s foreknowledge as to what would be, under given conditions, determined that such must be. It was not His design that the souls of mankind be lost; on the contrary it was and is His work and glory, “to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.” Nevertheless He saw the evil into which His children would assuredly fall; and with infinite love and mercy did He ordain means of averting the dire effect, provided the transgressor would elect to avail himself thereof. The offer of the firstborn Son to establish through His own ministry among men the gospel of salvation, and to sacrifice Himself, through labor, humiliation and suffering even unto death, was accepted and made the foreordained plan of man’s redemption from death, of his eventual salvation from the effects of sin, and of hispossible exaltation through righteous achievement." (Talmage, Chapter 3)
I LOVE this passage so much as well as this entire chapter. Our Heavenly Father knew we would not succeed, he knew he would have children fall away.
"The Eternal Father well understood the diverse natures and varied capacities of His spirit-offspring; and His infinite foreknowledge made plain to Him, even in the beginning, that in the school of life some of His children would succeed and others would fail; some would be faithful, others false; some would choose the good, others the evil; some would seek the way of life while others would elect to follow the road to destruction. He further foresaw that death would enter the world, and that the possession of bodies by His children would be of but brief individual duration. He saw that His commandments would be disobeyed and His law violated; and that men, shut out from His presence and left to themselves, would sink rather than rise, would retrogress rather than advance, and would be lost to the heavens. It was necessary that a means of redemption be provided, whereby erring man might make amends, and by compliance with established law achieve salvation and eventual exaltation in the eternal worlds. The power of death was to be overcome, so that, though men would of necessity die, they would live anew, their spirits clothed with immortalized bodies over which death could not again prevail." (Talmage, Chapter 3)
He knows His children SO well!!! I can only imagine the love our Heavenly Father has for each and every one of us. I know and testify that He does KNOW you. He LOVES you and CARES about you. The best part is that he does all three of these things in ways that we can't even begin to comprehend. He has a PERFECT love, knowledge and care for each and every one of us. We are ALL his children and He doesn't want any of us to fail, but loves us enough to give us our ability to choose for ourselves. I LOVE my Heavenly Father as well as my earthly Father. I promise you... all of you that you are NEVER out of the reach of your Father's grasp, all you have to do is reach up and grab his hand and He will lift you. You have never sinned to much, made too many mistakes or even done so much wrong that He will not still love you. I promise you all that. I hope that this helped one of you.
I hope you all have a fantastic week and are able to recognize your Father's love for you.
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Warmest Regards,
Elder Levi Snow Soller
Just an amazing quote from my favorite talk from Conference
E-mail: levi.soller@myldsmail.net
Mormon.org Profile: https://www.mormon.org/me/8C58/Levi
"When there is no enemy within, the enemy outside can do us no harm."
-African Proverb