October 5

Hey everybody!!!

So I didn't actually get to watch General Conference this week, but next week.  And it will be in English!!  We thought Tagalog, but we were wrong!  So I'm happy about that (:  I'm excited to see who the new apostles are.  I know they're gonna kill it. 

It's been a pretty good week!  We had a lot of good lessons, and I love Banna!  The people here are so nice. They are all so happy with so little. It's inspiring to me, and there is such a strong spirit that comes from sharing the Gospel.  You all should try it!  I think that people get scared a lot about sharing the Gospel a lot, but this week I realized how silly that is.  Imagine it this way.  You have a recipe for the most delicious cookies in the whole world, and you know you're friend will love it.  And so you offer to share the recipe with them!  Who's gonna be mad about that?  Even if they don't want it they're not going to be offended that you offered.  And I know that there are so many blessings that come from sharing the Gospel.  You just feel good when you do it.  

We taught a lot of lessons this week, to investigators and less actives.  We don't have any recent converts here in Banna that aren't less active.  But hopefully they'll be coming back.  And we find some on our own, but a lot of our investigators come from member refferals.  We have a couple of really solid members that help out, but we're trying to help all the branch to want to help with missionary work.  

I would like to talk about one investigator that we have here in Banna, because I think that we could all be a little bit more like her.  We found her through one of the members and she sat down and we did a little bit of the small talk, and then she got right into the meat of gospel discussions.  She had so many questions for us about what the Book of Mormon is, what our purpose is, how she can fulfill that, and so many other things.  She sincerely just wants to know what God wants her to do, and is willing to do the work needed to find out.  We all have questions, and we all want to do what's right, but sometimes we fall a little bit short of the mark when it comes to really studying and finding out.  So my challenge to you this week is to get better at studying to find the answers to your questions.  And to help you with that, I have a suggestion from Elder Bednar.  Its not an exact quote, but its the right meaning.

He said that anytime you have a questions, buy a cheap little blue Book of Mormon, like what the missionaries use, and then read it from cover to cover, the whole time marking it according to your question, and then afterward write a half page summary about what you learned.  

I've started to do that, and I know that Heavenly Father gives us so much guidance through that.  It's made my studies so much more effective and I love the help I get with my question.  I love you all, and have a great week!

Elder Childs