Monday, June 19, 2017

You can't take away anyone's agency {although it might be nice sometimes haha}




June 12, 2017 Emails

hey Dad! it was a good week. we did not actually find anyone new to teach this week, it seems that everyone we talked to did not keep the appointments we set, so that was kinda lame hahaha. that's work though haha. you can't take anyone's agency away, although it might be nice sometimes hahaha. we had to push B's date back, because he has been drinking and smoking quite a bit, and he was quite sad about it. he expressed that he still wants to be baptized, and he is going to come up with a new date for himself that will work with his family too. he will make it eventually! 

as for the W family, we have not made contact with them lately. they have been super busy. a bunch of our teaching pool has been dropped or is now avoiding us, so we have had some opposition there and so we have been working on finding--the eternal work of missionary work, finding. our mission is coming out with a new way to seek referrals from members. it is basically just focusing on following the Bishop's council to visit members and increase their faith to have quality gospel conversations with people they meet to prepare or bring them into the gospel for us to teach them. we call it priesthood directed finding, it all starts with the stake presidents and they push it to bishops who push it to members, so in turn we have more people to teach. it is supposed to increase the statistics to new investigators who are baptized to like 1 in 10 or something like that high. it's really cool. i am very excited about it, and we are meeting with the bishop and the sisters on Tuesday to get it rolling. 

C is doing really well, he got to pass the sacrament yesterday and liked it quite a bit, same with W. he is coming out with us on Friday to teach with us. W is probably one of my favorite converts hahaha he is super funny. i don't have much more to update you about, but it was a good week, we got to give a blessing to one of the people we have been teaching, and we had a really good lesson with K last night. we showed one of my favorite Mormon Messages, "spiritually fit," it's super good and since K likes to workout too, it helped him pretty well. 

that is super cool you got to go to Chile, that is a very long flight haha. now we are all visiting each others' missions it seems like, you to Jeff's, Jeff to mine, you to Jake's a while back.  how you spelled the Spanish made me laugh pretty good hahaha, you almost got it all right haha. sounds like you had good church meetings despite the language barrier.  we had ours about forgiveness, it was super good, one lady talked about a girl that was hit by a truck, and killed. the parent immediately forgave the driver. it was cool to think of that and how much more Christ will forgive us. it was a cool experience. that sounds like you have a bunch more traveling to do. that will be fun. 

it really is so important to keep an eternal perspective on things; if we do that, it is so much easier to keep the commandments. the  gift of Christ's atonement is all-encompassing, and it makes it all possible. i have strengthened my testimony of that lately. i know that i am changed through Christ, he can change our hearts and desires, and he will, if we have desire and if we pray to him in faith. i am so glad to have a mission experience that teaches me so much. thank you Dad for your testimony and your example! i love you Dad! i hope you enjoy the rest of your trip! have a great week! talk to you next week!


Elder Sedlacek

hey Mom! it was a good week! we did not find anyone, and Billy did not make it to church. he had some issues with the Word of Wisdom, and he is working on it, so we are pushing the date back. i wrote a bunch about our teaching pool, but in short it's time to find a new one hahaha, or add to it i should say. although we have some cool potential sprouting up lately. we got 2 referrals the past 4 days, that is pretty unusual. we have yet to contact the first one. he is a super rich guy, lives in a HUGE house. big for the Midwest at least, not always Utah though. i am excited to meet him. 

we have a lady we met last week when we passed her taking a bed off the top of her car, so we got out and helped her. she invited us back, so we have an appointment in a few days. should be exciting. L is still excited, but we need to get his parents into it more, or i won't be baptizing him. he needs support to stay active, or he won't be. 

my favorite part of the week was probably my birthday. it was a good day, just the same as the rest of the week, but we took our sorry selves to Burro Loco, a way good Mexican place that serves the dankest food! it was awesome. then we got ice cream haha. thank you so much for the gifts too, they are aweome! i ate the cake, it was pretty good for my cooking hahaha. Elder Mitchell also made cherry pie for district meeting too, it was really good. 

my favorite person was probably B, i am feeling a lot more love for people lately, it's a great feeling to have that Christ-like love, it boosts you up! we have really liked playing with the magnetic Thinking Putty hahaha, we make faces and have them eat the magnet haha. 

that is good you're staying busy this summer, and all that, it's nice to stay busy. i bet it's weird having Dad gone, i bet he is having a good time though, you will have to do something fun for yourself too hahaha. that is cool you had the people from India speak at stake conference. that would be fun to hear. sounds like you had very good meetings. i wrote about our sacrament meeting in dad's email. it was super good. a lot of people think that we try to "earn" our way into heaven, or "earn" blessings, but that is not the case. we qualify and will be more open to the Lord's blessings as we are obedient. if we are not doing our part, he can't bless us as much as he would like to. obedience shows the signs to God that we love Him, and are seeking to become like Him. the commandments are simple, but not always easy. we have a simple path to follow the Savior to be able to live with God again, and it will get us there. he  will make it "easier" for us to make it there, by lightning our burdens because of the atonement he performed. i know that because of Christ, we can be changed, we can be joyful, and we can become better. we had a great week!

you asked how i'm feeling about coming home? it's just the paradox of leaving behind something i have looked forward to my whole life, and now it's almost over. it's weird. and being able to feel the Spirit so much and then...i also am just excited to be done, since i am sooooo tired. it's constant battling thoughts and feelings. i just ignore it, and Elder Mitchell is a good help for that! what Jeff talked about when Jake was coming home is all true hahaha! it was a good warning. if i think about it too much, it just makes me sad.  

well, i have to go now Mom, i do need test strips this week, i am on my last vial, but good on everything else. well love you mom! i hope you have a great week!

-Elder Sedlacek

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