blessings the gospel brings into peoples' lives

Well, this week has been another good one. It's been really good. It's
cool how Heavenly Father will provide us with the things we need as we
go about His work. It's way true. There's so much growth to be had
being a missionary. But it all comes as we work to magnify our
calling. We've been able to find a lot of new people this week who
want to receive our message. One of them has never been visited by
missionaries before. It's a young family. We've got high hopes for
them. They're way nice. We were tracting one day and we ran into the
husband in his house. Turns out he'd fallen sick the day before. He
usually gets home at 5, we tracted him at 3. He was home because of
the sickness. We couldn't even tell he was sick until he told us at
the end of our visit. His name's E, his wife's name is T.
Another awesome thing about it is that there's a preparing missionary
who lives in the same house that we also had the opportunity to serve.
There were a few things he needed when we went and visited them. I
knew him from butaritari but had no idea he was here! Yeah we've had a
lot of good other tracting things happen this week. Our district is
working way hard. It's pretty cool to be able to see the blessings the
gospel brings into peoples' lives. It's cool to be able to see people
who are way prepared for baptism. Who have had the spirit work in them
as they experiment upon the word. Anyway, it's cool to be able to see
people change positively. Some other things that have happened...
We've found a few less actives this week in our tracting efforts.
We're really working now on doing all that we can to get our
investigators to church. I suppose that could be some of the most
important hours of the week as far as missionary work. The few hours
before and during church. It's a commandment that they only have the
chance to keep once a week. Anyway, We've got a few missionaries that
have serve here in kiribati who finished there time and now it's been
like 40 years since they served and they live here in betio. It's
awesome to hear their stories. They were like " we'd get up at 6:30
every morning. study, 1 hour. Breakfast, one hour. Then we'd go to
work" haha, it's funny how things have changed a bit. Our mission
president wants us to leave the house by 10:00. Which is really
awesome. It's nice to be out of the house early on. & then we can find
time language study and more companion study during the day and for
lunch as necessary. Yeah apparently back in the day there were a lot
of missionaries who went home early because "a kainnano ni baki"  they
were tired of always being hungry. Cause there weren't a ton of
members to feed them and according to him they didn't have a ton of
money or something like that. They'd work all day, skip lunch, and
then get back at 6:00, cook dinner, and go to sleep. Haha, it's cool
to hear all of his stories of back in the day. Speaking of dinners
with members. The members here are way nice. There was this one time
this week were our dinner fell through at the chapel, cause we were
gonna eat with the young men. One of our ward counselors was there, he
was just like "wait a minute". Then he paid for us all to bus to a
resturant, and then paid for our food at a resturant (this all while
we're trying to politely explain to him that we have money that we can
use). Yeah he's a pretty cool guy. There are some really kind members
here. Lots of really strong testimonies as well. It's cool to be able
to hear the members' conversion stories and stuff like that.
Well, I know the church is true. It's way cool and interesting to be
able to see the church on an island that's pretty isolated from the
world, but to see it function so well and to see the huge blessings it
brings to people. It's cause just like everywhere else, the people
have been able to gain there own testimonies and they know it's true.
I myself as well have gained a witness that continues to grow of the
truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and this church and also of
Christ's gospel. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Well, thanks again for everything, love you all! Ti a bo!!! - Elder SEffker

blessings of living God's commandments

So, this week was pretty good. We had some really good tracting this
week. We found a lot of new people we're able to teach. Specifically,
we found B and his wife Ba. B took lessons a bit about 10
years ago but never got baptized. He appartently already has a
testimony of the church. His wife is very open to our message as well.
There were a few other new people that we found. It's really cool to
be able to spread the message of the gospel. Even if they don't accept
the message. That's one of the things I've really learned a lot about
this week. Just teaching the message clearly, raising the voice of
warning, giving them a clear choice, and also seeking out those who
are prepared to receive the message.
Anyway, it's cool to see the Spirit work on people. It's cool to see
them get motivated. And also to see the blessings of living God's
commandments. We were able to see that quite a few times this week.
Well, mission work is going good! It's crazy when I think back at how
much I've grown. Missionary work is definitely a blessing. Teaching
has been a great blessing as well. The opportunity to teach every day
for 2 years is a good one! Especially among these Kiribati people who
are often very nice to let us come in and share our message.
This church is true. It's His church, it was restored by Him for us.
There's a lot of joy in store for us as we follow Him, and as we
choose to have joy. As we humbly seek happiness. Thanks for all you do
mom & dad and the fam!!! Thanks for the email that yous all sent!
Thanks again for the harmonica! haha. Hope you all have a good week!
Love you all!! - Elder Seffker