Grateful for the Restoration

Hi Family!

I'll share with you a bit of my letter to President Mains, again:

I witnessed this week what is, to me, the most faith-building miracle of my mission.  After planning for and conducting our zone meeting this week, Elder Mitchell and I had found no new investigators.  On Saturday night, I prayed that the Lord would help us to cross paths with people who would become new investigators on Sunday.  This prayer was special, somehow, because even though I knew that our chances of finding two new investigators in just one evening were minimal, I realized that God's will was still that we go and do as He commanded - to find two new investigators per week.  I knew that all things were possible with God, but I didn't know how this miracle would happen.  However, as we left the house in the evening after church, I felt a calm assurance that God would do his work if I remained focused.  We felt to go to the church, not far from our house.  Shortly after we arrived there we talked to a potential investigator who was contacted several weeks previous.  He told us that he was on his way to the church, so we decided to wait for him there and practice how we would teach him.  He soon arrived at the church, and to our great excitement, he had brought a friend, whom we had also contacted before!  As we taught them the message of the restoration, we felt the Spirit directing the discussion and helping them to realize that it was very important.  They both agreed to meet again, and thus became the new investigators that God had prepared for us!  I know that the counsel to find two new investigators per week is inspired of the Lord, and is His will for us.  He will help us (and has helped us!) to find his prepared children as long as we believe in his promises enough to seek them out earnestly and prayerfully.

This week, I also increased my faith by praying for the fulfillment of my righteous desires, then working with more focus toward achieving those desires.  I also pondered on what the message of the restoration of the gospel brings into my life.  As I considered all the blessings that have come into my life, and what the doctrines that I know really mean to me, I discovered that I truly wanted to share these truths with people and that God truly desires that His children know them.  I have really felt a new faith and sense of purpose as I have simply taught the restoration to investigators and to people we meet on the street.

I have also encouraged the members of  the Church here to become more involved in missionary work with us by inviting them to consider the blessings the restoration has brought into their lives, then think of a friend who needs the same blessings.  At a group lesson earlier this week, we encouraged our recent converts to pray and search for a friend to invite to our upcoming branch activity, and to share testimony with.

After conducting our zone meeting this week (which I don't have time to tell you about), I'm just brimming with testimony of and gratitude for the restoration.  I'll just tell you how I feel right now about the restoration of the gospel in this dispensation:  I know that the living Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only path that will take us back to live with our Heavenly Father in the Celelstial Kingdom as an eternal family.  I know that the Doctrine of Christ is true, but that it was lost from the earth for many centuries.  I'm so grateful that it was finally brought back to us by our loving Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, through the prophet Joseph Smith.  I believe that all the good things I love most about my life have been influenced by this all-important restoration of truth.  I'm so grateful that I was brought up in a family that knows our origin, our purpose, and founded an earthly home on principles of this restored gospel that point us always to our future heavenly home!  I love you all so much for your dedication to living according to the truth that we know concerning our Father's plan for us.  I'm grateful that I grew up reading the Book of Mormon and praying with you every day.  I'm so glad that we have wholesome, uplifting activities as a family often (at least every Monday night), and that the decisions we make together have been blessed by inspiration through personal and family prayer.  Finally, I'm grateful to know, as I teach people here who question their purpose and search for God in their lives, that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has our Savior at it's head, and is guided by revelation given to prophets, and that this, God's kingdom on the earth today will never fail or disappear.  I know, with something deeper in me than words can reach, that the Book of Mormon is 100% true and is the word of God for us today.  The glorious light of the restored gospel has broken forth after ages of darkness, and is ours today.  Never let go of it, and never give up on God. He'll never give up on you!

Love,

Brennan

Photos:

Our service project: we combined with the Masai Elders to clean up trash at the residence of members in their area.

I feel ya, cat.