I have more certainty than I've ever had that God lives and answers all our prayers

June 29, 2015

Sounds like life’s good at home. I can’t believe Cole got such a good deal! Who was it that interviewed him?? I knew there were better jobs in life than working at Oakview for minimum wage, however Cole will be folding clothes instead of doing man’s work. I’m sure he´ll like it there. It’ll be nice to buy clothes from him at the Nike outlet, haha. Is Cole excited to be moving? Probably not.. but he´ll be going on his mission soon and off to college anyway. Sounds like Jackson and May are enjoying the married life and finding fun things to do in Utah. I still want to know if Jackson’s going to sell his car to me when I get home :) I liked the picture of Ben’s daughter in the Mustang too, haha. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a little blonde girl like her haha. Hopefully you get better from you black eye, Mom. I was remembering the other day when I hit Cole in the eye with that stick and he went to school, I think it was the first day of school, with a black eye haha. 

So this week was really great. Israel and his less active friend that’s been going to church with him for 6 weeks  received the priesthood, and I had the opportunity to give the priesthood to Israel which was cool because I’ve never done that before. This week they’re going to get some church clothes so he will be able to pass the sacrament next week. It’s great to see the progress of the recent converts. Also, this last week we decided to have a fast on Tuesday to find some golden investigators. So we started looking and talking to everyone and after teaching one lady who just about punched us when we told he about the first vision, we found a 19 year old guy that was sitting on his door step reading the Bible. We went over to him and started talking to him about what he was reading. He said he wanted to read because he worries about his salvation, and then we started to teach him about salvation. We soon entered and discovered that in his house lives a family of 6 people. After teaching them for one week, 3 of them went to church this week, J (19 years old), M (23 years old) and D (13 years old) and they’re getting ready to be baptized this Sunday. D was really ready to be taught. Before we even taught him his Mom told us how D had told her that he wants to be baptized, before we even taught him! We hope to see the whole family at church this week and to start working on the parent’s marriage so they can be baptized as well. 

So to help them feel welcome in the ward we organized with all the organizations (Elders Quorum, Relief Society, and YM) to pass by their house this week to visit them/ invite them to mutual or what not. All the members were excited to help and to see the ward grow.

... Satan really is the father of lies as it says in 2 Nephi 2:18. He makes people, especially youth, believe in various theories about the existence of God and the truthfulness of the church. I´ve already seen multiple friends of mine from BYU fall away from the church because of doubts that turn into barriers for their spiritual growth, and I remember a talk that Jeffery R Holland gave https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2013/04/lord-i-believe?lang=eng, I think its called "Lord I Believe" when he says that we should always recognize what we already do know to help us discover what we don’t know yet. He says leading with our unbelief is like stuffing a turkey through the beak, haha. Everyone has doubts and everyone falls down every once in a while, but this must be one of the reasons that we have families in this life. To help us get back up and reach exaltation. This week on my mission I have more certainty than I have ever had that God lives and hears all of our prayers and that the Atonement is very real. I saw it this week change a family in 5 days from breaking all kinds of commandments to being ready to be baptized. No normal worldly influence could have made them change if not the Spirit made possible through the Atonement. I feel the power of God as I study and teach. It is all so real to me this week. Satan wants to trick everyone, but we have our families to help us. 

Well I don’t have much more time, but I hope you guys have a good week. Don’t forget to buy pizza for the missionaries :) haha Love you guys and hope your eye gets better!

-Élder Udy