Thursday, June 2, 2011

April 25, 2011

Hey Family,

We're going to be doing our phone calls on Mother's Day after church. Our church gets out at 1p.m. ET and we're 3 hours ahead of you....so yeah!

I hope everyone will be there so that I can hear all your voices. Let me know who will be there and who won't. If dad is gone, that's ok, President Perry gave me special permission to call a 2nd time so that dad will be there when I call.

We just had interviews the other day with President Perry and he was incredible! He said he was really impressed with my wisdom of how I go about studying. (Not to be prideful). He is a spiritual giant! Right now I'm studying Faith, and the Holy Ghost. It's EPIC. I'm hoping to make my time in study a time that I can feel that I'm in the temple. My prayers are going well too. It feels the same way, with the new things that come to mind as I pray. I think if I were to advise Laura on the gospel, I would relate faith. Her action to get rid of cigarettes is an act of that, if she keeps doing that (acting on the doctrine of the gospel) she will continue to receive a witness of the gospel and eventually have the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost.

Things have been going well with me and my companion. We're still working things out and we're enjoying the companionship of the Holy Ghost in our lives. One thing I'm learning is to put my trust and worries on the Savior. To do the best I can and try to do great things.

As I was studying faith I thought of looking in my planner at something I wrote down. I can't remember where I saw it but it reads: "Faith is greater then to have a pure knowledge of things". If someone says that they believe that they can't have faith then it's true that they won't get anywhere in life. So we need to ask ourselves questions all the time about that subject. How do I grow faith? What is faith? How can I apply faith? So it's some really cool things.....especially in the scriptures.

Mom, I'm stoked to hear that your living the missionary schedual. It's really great, and that your working out too. With that order of things that your doing, personal study will be more balanced and spiritual. After we have worked out, showered and eaten breakfast - it's awesome how much more focused we get when we go by that order. It's cool to see how much I've changed because of just that one thing. Also companionship study is equally good as well! To enlighten each other on subjects is incredible! It's really good to council on the scriptures during that time also. It puts into perspective how and where we should go in terms of what we do every day. It's AWESOME!

After my EPIC pain in my back, I asked my companion to give me a blessing. He did and after that event I wrote in my journal and the next day when I woke up the pain was no longer there. What I learned by that is that I can't just sit around and wait for the pain to leave, the Lord needs me to act on it (having faith) and it worked!

As the days go on my companion and I are becoming more joined by the Spirit and it's going very good. It's not easy to learn about the principles of the gospel but it's well worth it and to be an instrument of the Lord.

  • 2 Nephi 2:26
26." And the Messiah cometh in the fullness of time, that he may redeem the children of men from the fall. And because that they are redeemed from the fall they have become free forever, knowing good from evil; to act for themselves and not to be acted upon, save it be by the punishment of the law at the great and last day, according to the commandments which God hath given."

We must learn to act for ourselves and for our own salvation.

I hope everything is going really good, that's nice that dad got some time to himself. I too pray for Laura and Cory and Amanda and David and so does my mission president. I hope we can learn how to put more of our lives in the hands of the Savior. I'm trying to do that in my studies.

Let everyone know that I'm looking forward to saying hello over the phone on Mother's Day. I still don't get any correspondence from them yet so I'm really hoping they'll be  home for this phone call. Thanks for putting together Cd's for me. I hope y'all have a safe drive to Utah and back.

Tell everyone I said hi and I hope y'all are safe, enjoy that drive and listen to the Spirit often.

I love y'all

Elder Richards


+

No comments:

Post a Comment