Monday, May 22, 2017

Being a True Christian

It’s P-Day again! This is the first P-Day in about a  month that I actually used a few hours to sleep and rest. The last 3-4 P-Days E. Tanus went back to sleep as soon as it was 8:00 and I tried to too but I couldn’t stand laying down and doing nothing for even 2 minutes and so I got up, cleaned the house, and wrote my weekly letter. After (almost ) two years of constant, hard work, I feel like I always have to be doing something. Today I made myself keep laying down for a few more minutes until I fell asleep, and it was actually pretty great. It’ll be funny to see how I’ll be when I get home next month—I think I’ll always be looking for something to do!

The weights and bar I got from the house of the other elders have taken morning exercises to a whole other level. That’s been fun.

Last P-Day night we taught a lesson to a missionary couple from a volunteer organization. They were nice—they gave us a good snack of toasted peanuts and lemonade—but it has been a long time since I’ve taught a lesson to people so hard-hearted and closed-minded. I have found that atheists, agnostics and Buddhists are generally more respectful, receptive, and open –minded (even if they don’t believe in our message) that extreme “Christians” I put “Christians in hyphens because Christians are those who profess belief in and follow Jesus Christ as the Son of God but there are unfortunately quite a few “Christians” that don’t act like Christ showed us to. We invited them to read and pray about the Book of Mormon—if it’s true, God will tell you, and if it’s false, He’ll tell you too. They didn’t allow themselves to conceive the possibility of anything besides the Bible being capable of being the Word of God. We bore our testimonies and left. I know, by the power of the Holy Ghost that testifies of all truth, that the Book of Mormon is the Word of God. During my mission I’ve studied and pondered about the Savior, and I hope to be, now and during all my life, a true Christian—not just believing in Jesus, but becoming like Him. Why should we ever limit ourselves to merely professing belief in Christ when, through keeping His commandments, repenting of our sins, and dedicating our lives to serve and follow Him, we can be completely transformed from our natural and carnal state in His sons and His daughters! I invite you all to look up and read Mosiah 5. This letter will not be complete without it.

BUT we taught some receptive people also this week. I love teaching the gospel and know I'll miss it a ton. I really hope to baptize a family before the end of my mission, and I believe it will happen!

Last night we had an awesome activity with the young single adults of the ward. We plan to do several activities with them to involve them in the work. We played a game where we filled a cup with flour, turned it upside down on top of a plate, and put a 5 cent coin on top of the cup-shaped form of flour. Everyone had to use a knife to cut away an edge of the flour with his teeth. Yep, I ended up having to put my face in the flour! Hahaha it was fun.


Elder Anderson

 Planning out the rest of my mission and post-mission life!


 some pics of the activity with ths YSA






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