Thursday, July 9, 2015

Elder Edholm--week 5

Hey everybody, hope you all had an amazing fourth of July because mine was pretty good. We actually celebrated the fourth of July on the third because there's always a ton of people going to the temple on Saturdays. But they went all out, they decorated like crazy and we had turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and stuff like that because that's what the Dominican chefs think American food is, haha.
Proselyting with the actual missionaries for like eight hours was amazing!!! The time went by so fast. I was the only one who went with a missionary who only knew Spanish. The only English he knew was "what the freak." His name is Elder Sanchez and he was awesome. We taught a whole bunch of people. There's a bunch of really sketchy allyways that are really tiny. There's also really small winding stairways, I never could've imagined one that small. But I understood some of what was happening, but a couple times I thought I knew what was going on and then all of a sudden everybody was looking at me, and I was like "Well I guess it's my time to talk." So usually I just testified on what I thought was going on, haha. One really good experience that happened during proselyting. We were teaching this lady and I was almost falling asleep. Then I opened my mouth to say something and I was wide awake. This really told me that you can not convert someone without opening your mouth! The spirit works through your words. Lecture Sixth in Lectures on Faith says "When a man works by faith, he works by words." You can not convert somebody without faith, and you can not use your faith unless you open your mouth. But I'm way excited to do that again tomorrow, and then get out of here on Tuesday!!!
Well we heard from Elder J. Devn Cornish of the Seventy, he's the president over the Carribbean missions, and I was really excited to hear from him because he gave one of my favorite talks at general conference a couple years ago, and I was finally able to thank him for it, he gave an amazing talk. He talked about how you need to be all the way in the church or else you'll fall out. We also heard a talk last Sunday that Elder Bednar gave four years ago. I'm really beginning to like Elder Bednar a lot. He gave probably one of the best talks I've ever heard. He talked about what exactly the character of Christ is. He gave just one example. The example he gave is when Christ suffered at Gethsemane. After he was done suffering he came back to find his apostles asleep. Then Judas came and betrayed him with a kiss. That's when Peter chopped off the ear of the Roman Soldier. Now the character of Christ that Elder Bednar explains is the next part. Jesus has just gone through more pain than anyone else ever. It would've easily killed any human in seconds. Then he comes back and his apostles are asleep, and then another one of his apostles betrays him. Then the ear gets chopped off. Compared to what Jesus just went through a chopped off ear is like getting pricked by a thorn. In that moment when the natural man would turn in towards themselves and say, "Who cares what happened to him, look at what happened to me" Jesus turns out and heals the guard's ear. The character of Christ is turning out when the natural man would turn in. I found it a very powerful talk.
Anyway, I hope the van is okay, and I had no clue that Grandpa was moving into Treeo! Also I haven't gotten any letters, did you possibly send them to the mission home? Anyway, tell Emma to be a good captain in Flags, tell Andy that he needs to work harder than anybody else in football if he wants to play varsity, keep me updated on how Eric is doing in golf and stuff, tell Lucy to keep practicing hard at Gymnastics, or whatever Ms. athletic, do everything is doing right now, and tell Peter that I miss wrestling and watching Justice League with him.
Have a good week!
-Elder Edholm

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