Hey Family!
How’s all y’all doin’? Well, we had the baptism for Hermana Orbalina this last Saturday. Everything went great and we had great support from the branch. It was also kinda cool because President Shumway and his wife were close by, so they actually came to the baptism.
In this area we are also working a lot with inactive and people who are not paying their tithing. There is such a big push in being able to make this branch into a ward. I think we will be able to do it before too much longer.
Ruben is still awesome and has been progressing really well. The only problem is that his parents are born, raised, and ready to die Catholic. His mom actually supports him and has given permission, but his dad is being a bit of a stinker and wants him to wait for a bunch of time before he is baptized. As part of trying to get his dad to give permission, we challenged Ruben to read the whole Book of Mormon before the 17th of this month. Elder Jones and I are also reading it with him. We are hoping and praying that his dad will feel the spirit of what Ruben is trying to do and won’t hold him back from progressing. We went to the temple with Ruben yesterday and had a great experience. It helped grow his faith so much and make him even firmer in being resilient in talking with his dad. I will make sure I attach the picture down below of when we were at the temple.
Something that I have noticed this last week, that just kinda drives me crazy, is how much power people give to Satan! There are so many people who feel like they can’t go to church or read the scriptures because, "Satan never sleeps". Whenever people say that Satan never sleeps that first things that I ask is, "do you think that God sleeps?" We, as sons and daughters of God, have so much more power than Satan. I love the story from Moses when Satan tempts Moses and it ends with Moses rebuking him saying that he is a son of God and has more power than him and that he will never worship Satan. In this moment Moses, although a prophet, is just a man and when he commanded Satan to depart, he departed. One scripture that I like is in James 2 verse 19 that says, "Thou believest that there is one God, thou doest well, the devils also believe and tremble." The enemy of our soul only has power if we give him power.
Be strong in all of your goals! I love you all tons!
Love,
Elder Marks
How’s all y’all doin’? Well, we had the baptism for Hermana Orbalina this last Saturday. Everything went great and we had great support from the branch. It was also kinda cool because President Shumway and his wife were close by, so they actually came to the baptism.
In this area we are also working a lot with inactive and people who are not paying their tithing. There is such a big push in being able to make this branch into a ward. I think we will be able to do it before too much longer.
Ruben is still awesome and has been progressing really well. The only problem is that his parents are born, raised, and ready to die Catholic. His mom actually supports him and has given permission, but his dad is being a bit of a stinker and wants him to wait for a bunch of time before he is baptized. As part of trying to get his dad to give permission, we challenged Ruben to read the whole Book of Mormon before the 17th of this month. Elder Jones and I are also reading it with him. We are hoping and praying that his dad will feel the spirit of what Ruben is trying to do and won’t hold him back from progressing. We went to the temple with Ruben yesterday and had a great experience. It helped grow his faith so much and make him even firmer in being resilient in talking with his dad. I will make sure I attach the picture down below of when we were at the temple.
Something that I have noticed this last week, that just kinda drives me crazy, is how much power people give to Satan! There are so many people who feel like they can’t go to church or read the scriptures because, "Satan never sleeps". Whenever people say that Satan never sleeps that first things that I ask is, "do you think that God sleeps?" We, as sons and daughters of God, have so much more power than Satan. I love the story from Moses when Satan tempts Moses and it ends with Moses rebuking him saying that he is a son of God and has more power than him and that he will never worship Satan. In this moment Moses, although a prophet, is just a man and when he commanded Satan to depart, he departed. One scripture that I like is in James 2 verse 19 that says, "Thou believest that there is one God, thou doest well, the devils also believe and tremble." The enemy of our soul only has power if we give him power.
Be strong in all of your goals! I love you all tons!
Love,
Elder Marks
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