Saviors love for him / learning things still but in a greater quantity

 I ended up giving a talk on Sunday it went pretty well. It was about five minutes short of 15 min. but I felt like it was okay for only having a couple hours to prepare. Back at home it would have taken me more than that. The topic I felt like doing was interesting. Keeping the Sabbath Day holy is what I felt like doing.  I think the first commandment I remember learning was this. I was really little but I remember it pretty well. I was waiting around on a Sunday thinking about the new mario kart game we got for the n64 the day before. I remember that it looked really fun so I asked Mom if I could play it even though it was Sunday. She told me to say a prayer.  That is the part that I remember well.  I said, "can I play this game today?" I got the answer no so I asked again. Again, "no" so I just said yes in my head and persuaded myself I got the answer yes. After that all I really remember was blurry... because I got in a fight with someone else that wanted to play probably. That experience seems kind of dumb but to me it actually taught me a lot about keeping the Sabbath Day and of course about praying with real intent.

     An interesting experience...we were going to Estanizlou´s house. He is a recent convert. He said he had a surprise for us which is not surprising at all around here. He said to come over to his house. We get there and he has a little bag hanging up. He tries to dump out what looks like a dead frog. It was alive barely. It was a special kind of frog that looks cool. It inflates as its defense and it is poisonous.  When at his house  we get a call, it is one of the sister missionaries crying and it sounds like she got robbed or something. She is talking to my companion here on the phone but I can hear. Some preacher guy went to these two elderly people´s house and has been there since yesterday. Now remember these people are like  85 so I´m pretty sure maybe 90 and this Chinese preacher is staying at their house. He won´t leave even though they told him to so me and my companion leave the frog thing and go there. The sister missionaries were doing the arrangements for them to get married soon and this week we were going to go to the interview.  We start walking toward the house and meet up with the Hermanas. One of them is crying and the other looks the same way. Of course we have seen some over reactions in the past so this doesn´t exactly say the preacher is violent or anything like they explained it to be. Then a gold car pulls up and this Chinese preacher guy and his caddy boy or assistant start telling us a bunch of annoying things that barely make any sense. We pretty much watch him and then my companion says a few things and eventually he gets back in his car and drives away. Our branch president shows up on his motto. He was going to the interview too. Now before this happened I could feel the Spirit tell me things are all good. At this time the Spirit prompted me that now we would go to the more important part. We showed up at their house, sung a nice hymn and talked a little bit. It was a completely different feeling than before. You can´t really feel any love during contention. In the gospel we preach all about that. Christs love is the sort of light that shines out things of darkness. Serving is the way we teach that I would say. Anyway, they will get baptized later. They still have to get ready with some things. Hopefully they choose to do that.

     

    Also I had a cool experience a couple days earlier. It was really a simple one. The gospel is simple. Truth by itself I believe is simple but the lies are what directs us away from the truth. That is why we need to live on the pure truth and the important truth. Anyway though, we were in a visit with a really cool member, her name is Agueda. I´m not sure how to spell her name. She recently has started to activate and I think she has a strong testimony but we were talking with her and some one passing on the street said something interesting like, ´´I need to eat the devils leaves´´ something weird and probably slightly innocent due to some mental problems. This guy asked if he could come in, apparently Agueda had known who it was because she let him come and visit with us. We ended up listening to him quote some scriptures or something that sounds similar. It was hard to tell but eventually we went to the scripture in the Bible where it talks about the lost sheep and how the Savior loves everyone. I remember thinking about the life of the man who was visiting with us. He probably doesn't have a lot of friends and doesn't understand what is going on well. He walks the street with his walking stick and in his head probably does well at his job. Maybe he has a family that helps take care of him maybe not so much. I think I felt just a little bit of the Saviors love for him, I know that He loves all his sheep and I am glad that He came and talked to us. Life as President Monson says is ´´perfect for none´´ so basically the thing we should be focusing on is what can we do that the Savior would,  rather than what we see missing in other people. Well I love you guys see ya later 
Elder Seffker

This week I'm just gonna give a brief update. It was a fast week.

One of the highlights was that we went to the temple as a mission. We had to divide our mission into 4 groups and go 4 different days. We went on Friday. It was really good. I love the temple. I have been reading a lot of scriptures about the temple that have helped me learn a lot. I've also been reading the Book of Mormon a lot lately. This stake that I got transferred into was committed by the stake President to read the Book of Mormon by the end of the year and so it pushes me a lot to read more than usual. I love that book. I am surprised that it seems I'm learned more now as I read through it than I learned last time and the times before that I've read it. Not only am I learning things still but in a greater quantity each time. Last night we had a ward mission fireside put on by our ward mission leader at a member's house. A member taught about biblical evidence of the book of Mormon. It was really good. We had a couple non-members there and some less-actives and others. I love the members in this ward. They are so great.

Well, I love y'all and hope you have a good week!

love, Elder Russell