LET US HELP THOSE WHO HAVE NO HOPE

Dated:  August 5, 2013

So Elder Snow and I had a decent week. We haven't been able to find any new investigators, even though we did a ton of tracting. We did run into an Apostolic Minister this week. He was very quick to let us know that we are false, teaching false doctrine, and deceiving people, and the Book of Mormon is a false book, and that we are not Christian. But he said that we don't know any better so we will be OK. He was clearly not interested. We didn't bash or anything, we just calmly told him that what he was saying wasn't true and he could learn more at mormon.org.  After we walked away, we said a prayer for him (it seemed like the right thing to do and the only way to cool off after it, because it was rather frustrating. I am sure some people can relate).  I hope to see him in the Celestial kingdom someday. I think I kind of understand to a degree what the sons of Mosiah felt like or Alma felt like when they were getting rejected and they felt sorrow for the people because their hearts were hard. The people around here are great, and so kind. There are just so many good, good people. It is kind of sad when even very kind people don’t want to learn about the gospel. There is just so much blindness and hard hardheartedness, but the elect are out there somewhere, we just need to find them.

I finished the Book of Mormon this week. Man, That book is SOOOO TRUE! I dont get how anyone could read it and deny it. Moroni's last words in chapter 10 are soo powerful. I really like the verse that says "And if ye have no hope ye must needs be in despair; and despair cometh because of iniquity." Hope has been something that has stuck out to me this week. We all should hope to be able to return to God, to have Eternal Life. If we don't have that hope, we don't have faith, and if we don’t have faith, we don’t have charity. We need all 3. Faith, hope and charity. If we feel we have no hope, then it means we probably need to repent. "Wherefore, there must be faith; and if there must be faith there must also be hope; and if there must be hope there must also be charity. And except ye have charity ye can in nowise be saved in the kingdom of God; neither can ye be saved in the kingdom of God if ye have not faith; neither can ye if ye have no hope." (All in chapter 10 of Moroni)

SO let us hope for eternal life, and help those who have no hope, or for some reason have lost hope. I love the gospel of Jesus Christ. I love the Book of Mormon. I love my Savior. He is the way. He will and can help us though all things, because he has overcome all things. I know this to be true.

I love you all, I hope you are all doing well. The mission is the best thing ever. There is truly no place, or any other thing I would rather be doing than this. There is Joy surrounding and within everything, even the hard and sad times.

Love,

Elder Joshua R. Spencer


O ya, I forgot to tell you all, we went to Bible study with one of our Investigators as an effort to fellowship him and get to know more people at his church, because we run into a lot of them. It was great, everyone loved us being there. (It was a black church bible study) They sing very well. It was a unique experience. The pastor taught on Acts 15. It was interesting. He related it to how we shouldn't let little arguments keep us from coming to church. (In that story, Peter and Paul get into an argument over Mark). Our investigator now committed to come to our church one week. Yay, it worked. We also got to know a bunch of the people there, so now when we knock on their doors, they will probably let us in.