October 9, 2017

Family,

This week went pretty well. Elder Heal and I have been struggling to find new investigators lately so we decided to come up with something we could sacrifice. So we did a car fast. On Wednesday we were on foot for the whole day mostly just finding people. We went the whole week and found a few potentials but never found any new investigators. Until Saturday the hermanas gave us a call and they found an investigator for us! We were super excited and were definitely blessed. Although it's kinda fun when you find investigators yourself. We will take them any way we can get them. ha ha

Saturday night we were out walking and we got a call from the Enumclaw 2nd ward young men's president asking us if we could do a fireside for the youth on Sunday night at 7:00 on Christlike attributes. I swear we are always getting called to do things last minute.  ha ha
But it's fine. Whether I have 2 months to prepare or 1 day I will probably prepare it the day before so it really doesn't matter. It was pretty fun. We got a feeling that we should do it a little bit differently and we started out asking the youth if they felt like there was a lot of expectations in the church. Obviously everyone thought there was and we made a huge list of tons of expectations there are in the church. Then we talked about how in 3 Nephi 27:27 Christ says what manner of men ought ye to be, even as I am. So then we talked about a lot of Christlike attributes and how as we develop them and start to live them we will start to see and understand the expectations that the church has. Then they won't seem so much like expectations anymore but we will realize the blessings that come from them as we do them! 

One of the attributes we focused on was knowledge. It is so important to gain a knowledge of the gospel in this life. I love the scripture in D&C 130:18-19

18 Whatever principle of intelligence we attain unto in this life,

it will rise with us in the resurrection.

19 And if a person gains more knowledge and intelligence in this life

through his diligence and obedience than another, he will have so much

the advantage in the world to come.

    Our knowledge is the only thing that we will be taking with us into the next life. As we gain a knowledge we "will have so much the advantage in the world to come."

This past week I also got a letter from my mission President congratulating me for serving for 1 year and he invited me to take some time to ponder the past year and make some new goals for the next year. I took some time to go out by a lake (he said in his letter this was okay to do)  and ponder this past year. I definitely  feel that I have grown a lot since I came out. Growing up in the gospel I definitely feel like I took it for granted a lot of the time. I didn't really understand the importance of it all. I have grown to love the Book of Mormon so much. I feel my days go so much better as I really read, ponder and pray about it. From reading the Book of Mormon I have also felt my love for the Savior grow. I am so grateful for His atoning sacrifice and for the infinite amount of opportunities we have to strive to become better and more like Him.

   As I was thinking about what goals I needed to set for this next year nothing was coming to my mind. Now I know that there is a lot I need to improve on and become better at but nothing specific was coming to my mind. I ended up going on with the rest of my day not feeling like I got a specific answer to what I need to improve on this next year. Later that night we got a call from the young men's president of the 2nd ward asking us if we could do a youth fireside the next night on Christ like attributes. When he said that it kinda hit me like that was the answer to my prayers. That one thing I need to work on this year is studying more on the life of Christ and striving to obtain Christlike attributes. So those are some of the things I will be working on for this next year is studying more of the life of Christ and working on developing His attributes.

That is something I would invite each of you to do to. Study more of the life of Christ. I know that as we do so we will be able to feel his love and presence more in our lives. I love each of you! Have a good week!!

YOUR THE BEST I LOVE YOU!!!!!❤
Elder Ethan Stucki