Follow the Promptings of the Spirit
Well this week I had an amazing experience! We did a lot more service and helped people come closer to Christ. We helped take out a retaining wall in someone's backyard and helped him put in cement blocks. We helped another lady with her yard and helped people feel peace in times of need. My favorite part of course besides helping people come closer to Christ is working on the ranch. This week, we were able to help out with therapeutic rising lessons which was so much fun! We were helping kids with special needs ride horses, get exercise and teach them how to take care of horses. The more I work on a ranch out here it makes me want to live on one when I get older - ranch life is difficult, I have mucked stalls, dug post holes, taken care of the horses and many other things out here and there is just something about it that I love. We are going fishing this afternoon which should be super fun and I will let you all know if I catch anything! Haha.
I love Colorado and have told my mom in the past that this is the one place that I could move other than the south. I absolutely love the south! The more I am here, I don't think I could live here unfortunately as much as I love it. I miss the humidity... Never thought I would say that, but I do! I love the south and don't think I will ever leave.
So this e-mail may be a little shorter than others because... well... I want to go fish! Haha.
I had an incredible experience this week that I would like to share you all - probably one of the most spiritual experiences yet. It's funny how the most spiritual experience came after a series of unfortunate events. We started off the evening having dinner at Village Inn which isan incredible breakfast place. I had strawberry crêpes! We then biked to our lesson with an investigator which was at a members house, on our way there, I got a phone call from Laura (our investigator) canceling. We told her it was alright and decided to continue on to the house because we had invited someone to come to the lesson and she was there. On our way there, we also decided to cross the street because the sidewalk ended which was a mistake. While we were in the median, a cop passed by and got on the megaphone and told us to cross at the crosswalk and not in the middle of the street. Obviously this was not good on our part, but oh well. Once we got there, we talked for a few minutes and Brother Dale was showing the other member around his house (he has a lot of antiques). Elder Boss and I were in a room and decided to get on our knees and pray. We asked God to help guide us to wherever he may need us, during the prayer, I heard someone asking for help. I'm not exactly sure who it was or where it even came from, but I knew someone needed help and I was determined to find them. We left the house and headed home striking up conversations on the way home, however none of them seemed to have any interest in the gospel. We got home and I didn't feel like we had met the person that needed help. I said a quick personal prayer asking for personal guidance and help finding this person. During the prayer I felt this voice tell me, "Go visit Brother ______ and tell him that I love him." I said another prayer asking if that was what I needed to do and if that would be the best use of the remainder of the evening. (At this time it was getting a little late and would probably only have enough time for 1 more lesson) I received the confirmation in my heart and so we walked over to this persons house which was pretty close to ours. He let us in and asked how our day went. I described how the lesson was cancelled, the cop and the prompting I received.
I said, "I don't know how to tell you this, but your Heavenly Father wanted me to tell you that He loves YOU!"
I could hardly get through that sentence without crying because I knew a little bit about what he was going through.
We sat in silence for a few moments and then he started talking about how he was doing. His wife had just recently passed on. He bore a powerful testimony on the Plan of Salvation and where his wife is. He stated that he knows where she is and it was super powerful. He later explained that he had been having a little bit of a hard day - It had been exactly a month from the day she passed. Elder Boss and I bore our testimonies of the gospel and it was an evening full of laughter as well as tears. I know that he was the person we needed to see that evening. The fact that it was exactly a month since her passing is not a coincidence. I know that prompting was from my Heavenly Father and I am very glad I didn't give up on it after about an hour of searching for that person who was asking for help. I am so very grateful for this gospel and the amazing opportunity I have to help others come closer to Christ.
I would invite each and every one of you whether you are a member of The Church of Jesus Christ or not to read the Book of Mormon and to ask God if the things are true as Joseph Smith did in 1820 as he was reading from the first chapter of James, verse 5. "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that give to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him."
In Joseph's words:
"9 My mind at times was greatly excited, the cry and tumult were so great and incessant. The Presbyterians were most decided against the Baptists and Methodists, and used all the powers of both reason and sophistry to prove their errors, or, at least, to make the people think they were in error. On the other hand, the Baptists and Methodists in their turn were equally zealous in endeavoring to establish their own tenets and disprove all others.
10 In the midst of this war of words and tumult of opinions, I often said to myself: What is to be done? Who of all these parties are right; or, are they all wrong together? If any one of them be right, which is it, and how shall I know it?
11 While I was laboring under the extreme difficulties caused by the contests of these parties of religionists, I was one day reading the Epistle of James, first chapter and fifth verse, which reads: If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
12 Never did any passage of scripture come with more power to the heart of man than this did at this time to mine. It seemed to enter with great force into every feeling of my heart. I reflected on it again and again, knowing that if any person needed wisdom from God, I did; for how to act I did not know, and unless I could get more wisdom than I then had, I would never know; for the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible.
13 At length I came to the conclusion that I must either remain in darkness and confusion, or else I must do as James directs, that is, ask of God. I at length came to the determination to “ask of God,” concluding that if he gave wisdom to them that lacked wisdom, and would give liberally, and not upbraid, I might venture."
Then after this conclusion, he received an answer to his prayers.
"14 So, in accordance with this, my determination to ask of God, I retired to the woods to make the attempt. It was on the morning of a beautiful, clear day, early in the spring of eighteen hundred and twenty. It was the first time in my life that I had made such an attempt, for amidst all my anxieties I had never as yet made the attempt to pray vocally.
15 After I had retired to the place where I had previously designed to go, having looked around me, and finding myself alone, I kneeled down and began to offer up the desires of my heart to God. I had scarcely done so, when immediately I was seized upon by some power which entirely overcame me, and had such an astonishing influence over me as to bind my tongue so that I could not speak. Thick darkness gathered around me, and it seemed to me for a time as if I were doomed to sudden destruction.
16 But, exerting all my powers to call upon God to deliver me out of the power of this enemy which had seized upon me, and at the very moment when I was ready to sink into despair and abandon myself to destruction—not to an imaginary ruin, but to the power of some actual being from the unseen world, who had such marvelous power as I had never before felt in any being—just at this moment of great alarm, I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me.
17 It no sooner appeared than I found myself delivered from the enemy which held me bound. When the light rested upon me I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other—This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!
18 My object in going to inquire of the Lord was to know which of all the sects was right, that I might know which to join. No sooner, therefore, did I get possession of myself, so as to be able to speak, than I asked the Personages who stood above me in the light, which of all the sects was right (for at this time it had never entered into my heart that all were wrong)—and which I should join.
19 I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: 'they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.'"
I testify of the truthfulness of this account.
Joseph Smith did indeed see God the Father and Jesus Christ. I know this to be true as I have prayed for myself and although I have not seen them as Joseph did, I have had it revealed to me that this event did indeed take place. Don't take my word for it, please read it with real intent, a sincere heart and contrite spirit. I promise you as Moroni did in the end of the Book of Mormon that if you do this, "you will know the truth of all things by the power of the Holy Ghost."
If you would like to read more of Joseph's account, click here: https://www.lds.org/scriptures/pgp/js-h/1?lang=eng.
The Book of Mormon: https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm?lang=eng
I love you all and hope you have a fantastic week!
Please feel free to respond with any questions or concerns.
As always, let me know if there is anything I can do for you.