The Gospel shall roll forth

Good evening,

I don't usually send emails this late in the day. Normally, p-day should end at 6, but I guess in our mission as long as we get 3 proselyting hours in, then it's fine to do emails after 6, though it's not preferable. I would have sent an email much earlier but we got a call from Brother Lefferts to help him load/unload a bunch of junk he had been keeping in a storage unit. Brother Lefferts is a recent convert, vietnam veteran, and just a funny old guy. He's like another grandpa to me, though he could never replace Grandpa Allen or Grandpa Bob. He helps us out a ton by fellowshipping for our investigators. He also drives us around a lot so we can save miles. He usually will take us to our lessons with Mike in New Minden. Speaking of Mike, he is doing excellent. Mike is pretty much ready to be baptized, just needs to come to church more consistently. He could get baptized as early as October 24. We are going to talk to him about this week. He is moving to Tennessee at the beginning of next month so we will see what he wants to do. He came to church for the 2nd time this week. It was Stake Conference in O'Fallon which is a good hour away from here. Stake Conference (saturday and sunday) was really really good. Elder K. David Scott from the Seventy came to speak as well as our mission president and wife, President and Sister Morgan. I can't really remember a whole lot what they said at the moment. A lot of it had to do with hastening the work of salvation and having the missionaries and members work in unity. Elder Scott did a neat demonstration where he had a recently activated gentlemen come up to the pulpit and share his reactivation story. Then he had all of the people who influenced his coming back to church come to the pulpit as well. There were over like 15 people who played a key role. There were others as well. His demonstration just goes to show how important it is for members to help out as well, because missionaries can't do it by themselves. I think most members do a pretty good job at that, but in order for the work to hasten it would certainly help if people sought for more missionary opportunities. When I return from my mission, I can't wait to keep bringing people back to the fold. There is no greater joy than saving a soul. There really isn't. Don't believe me? Try it :) 

I really like this verse in Dand C 65:2  "The keys of the kingdom of God are committed unto man on the earth, and from thence shall the gospel roll forth unto the ends of the earth, as the stone which is cut out of the mountain without hands shall roll forth, until it has filled the whole earth." The work of salvation is hastening. The stone is rolling like a snowball and is growing and growing. Elder Scott said something pretty cool. He said that it's not too far distant that there will be a numerous amount of people joining the church because of the increasingly wicked world. They will have nowhere else to turn to, no other church to either. Eventually the decision to either join the church and follow the lord, or follow the devil will be pretty black and white. I thought that was interesting.

Anyways, Our other investigator, Jose, said yes to being baptized on December 3. Kind of a long time from now. But there is a language barrier between us so it takes us longer to teach him the lessons. Thank goodness we have Francisco help us translate everything. Bless his heart. He is the most humble, willing Mexican man I'll probably ever meet. He'll do anything for us. Jose is the best. He gave us homemade horchata afterwards. Muy sabroso (I think sabroso means tasty)! Aparently those 3 years of spanish didn't do a whole lot for me. 

Jose also came to stake conference on Sunday! He probably didn't understand much, but at least he came. He's actually been coming to church every other sunday for quite some time now. 

But anyways, after stake conference, as we backed out of the parking space, the axle (or something) to Fransisco's minivan came completely off! It was such a blessing that it did in the parking lot rather than while we were going highspeeds! The Lord was looking out for us, except poor Francisco still has his van in the church parking lot. He asked us this morning if we could drive him to O'fallon but we aren't allowed to because of mission rules. Unfortunately, he drove all the way there but we were unable to find anyone to go with him so he could bring his mini van back. Poor Fransisco.

It was a fairly fruitful week. We had another lesson with Brother Barfield, an inactive gentlemen of about 40+ years! We taught him the gospel of Jesus Christ, and before we even got into the bulk of the lesson, he basically invited himself to come to church this coming sunday! It really is a miracle. He has a lot going for him right now. His wife died a few months ago so he is still grieving over that. He is pretty lonely, but is such a good-hearted individual. He loves his St. Louis Cardinals, that's for sure! A lot of people around here like the Cards except for a few who are Chicago Cubs fanatics like our Bishop, Bishop Kretschmer. He took us out to pizza the other day. We also went to his house for a halloween party where we played a fun game called "Would you eat your neighbor?" I don't have time to explain, but you should look it up. It would be fun to play for my annual halloween party. We also played a mummy game where the first person to wrap their teammate up into a mummy using toilet paper wins. We won. I was the mummy. We were tempted to take all of the toilet paper home because we are low on it. we didn't though because that's kind of weird.

How has your ponderizing all been going? Last week my scripture had to do with being humble. And so whenever I needed to humble myself that scripture would pop in my head. It works!

My scripture for this week is D&C 123:17:

" Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed."

Check out these links i found on lds.org I wish I had time to read it, but at least you all can.
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/answers-to-personal-questions?cid=HP_WE_10-7-2015_dPTH_fGC_xLIDyL2-3_&lang=eng