June 11, 2018

Family,

The start of this week was pretty average. We did lots of finding less active members and part member families. We had a couple of good lessons with the (M) family. Mainly Brother M. His kids were running around and his wife was sick. Brother M. is a less active member who hadn't been to church for a year. (more or less) That was the last time he had been but he has never been to active. His family goes every now and again. We got talking to him about church and why he doesn't come anymore and it was because he has had people give him a hard time because he smokes. We started teaching about building our foundation on Christ and applying his atonement into our lives.

In the middle of the lesson I was trying to think of what Christ would say to Brother M. if he was in the lesson with us. As I was thinking about this I felt so strongly that Christ wants him to come back to church and be there with his family. I was kinda nervous to say it because he had already told us that he has made up his mind that church wasn't for him but he still loves the gospel just not going to church anymore.

But of course when Christ needs his message to get to someone he will make it happen. The impression grew stronger that I needed to tell him so I kinda explained to him that throughout the lesson I had been thinking of what Christ would tell him if he was there. I told him as representatives of Jesus Christ we strive to live in such a way so that we can have the Spirit to help us get God's message to the hearts of those we teach. I told him how I felt so strongly that if Christ was there, He would invite him to come back to church. We read in  3 Nephi 18:12 with him. It talks about the commandment to continue to partake of the sacrament and how that is how we can build our foundation upon Christs rock. The spirit was so strong as we did so and to see brother M. (now this is a guy who's been in construction all his life, he's 55, used to be kinda a cowboy)  Just a big tough man...  to see him getting teary eyed and almost begin to weep... was another testament to me that God knows the hearts of his children. He knows what he needed at this time. We know that he knew at that time what he needed to do. He didn't say much after the lesson but we hope and pray that he will come to church this Sunday.

Saturday was another special day. It was G. baptism!! It went really well and she had quite a bit of family come that are not members. It has been so fun working with and teaching G. she just soaked every thing right up and knew it all to be true. While we were teaching her she even helped to reactivate one of her friends families who are members of the church but haven't been out in over a year. So that was super awesome too.

Those are the main points of our week. We have found some really cool people that we have return appointments with for this next week that we are exited about. Last Friday we had interviews with the mission President that went really well. 

Thank you all for all that you do. 

I hope you all have a good week. and Happy Birthday to Ty this last week too! 

I love you all!!

Elder Stucki