First off, thank you
Mom for the letter this week, I really enjoyed it. I also enjoyed the
run down of all my Brothers and Sisters in your email. Great to hear
that everyone is doing well!
This has been a
fantastic week as a missionary! Lots of good has happened and lots of
changes within myself. I have never been happier in all my life than as a
missionary and I seem to be at the widest point of the crescendo now,
living life to its fullest. The promises that are extended to those who
labor in the Lord's vineyard are true!
The
work is expanding: the lessons that were taught this week were
particularly powerful. I have never felt so empowered before than this
last week. We had a fantastic lesson with an older couple and extended a
baptism date of Feb 14th and they accepted, so we are really looking
forward to them entering "the gate" and making it to the temple
eventually, but there is still a lot of work in the meantime to do in
order to get them there. They are fantastic potentials for the temple
though.
Also another lesson was when we went
and saw one of our investigators who was not super progressing and she
surprised us by saying she had been up for the last 2 days reading the Book of Mormon straight and was almost finished with it. She related to
us the amazing stories of the Stripling Warriors, the Title of Liberty,
and the Savior blessing the children in the Americas. She bore her
testimony to us that she has felt a particular closeness to the Savior
by reading the book and that it is simply Amazing! We bore our
testimonies of the Book of Mormon and built the connection between if
the Book of Mormon is true, then Joseph Smith was really a prophet and
the church has been restored. We then went onto mormonchannel.org
and watched Elder Holland's testimony of the Book of Mormon (which I
highly recommend you watch if you have not already). By the end of the
video she was crying. We left her with all that food for thought and
today received a text from her saying " I finished yesterday. A lot to
think about." So we are hoping and praying she may come to the
realization of what she needs to do. She knows we want her to be
baptized, we have extended many times, she has felt the spirit as she
has read the Book of Mormon. Now she just needs to connect the dots.
Another
great thing that happened yesterday was for the first time in my life, I
saw with my own eyes, an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. Elder D.
Todd Christofferson came to the mission yesterday and gave a missionary
fireside in one of the stakes. We grabbed a recent convert,
investigator, and member to come with us to the meeting and it was a
wonderful experience. There were a few things that really stood out to
me. First off, is what he looked like: Elder Christofferson is not a
really large man, but is about the height of Dad, and when he was seated
on the stand the man was literally glowing. Like . . . it was almost
eerie. He was simply brighter than everyone else. When he spoke to us, the
first thing that hit home was that he expressed his love for the
missionaries, and I could really tell he loves us. The rest of his talk
was fairly ordinary and did not have any monumental impact on me as it
was directed at the non-members that were present. He was very bold in
inviting them to be baptized and most of his talk was about baptism.
Then at the end . . . and this is where I was most puzzled when he bore
his testimony with the words "As a special witness of Jesus Christ"
which they often say in conference but then he added "As someone who
knows him and knows his power. . ." That was a powerful statement.
We
have living Apostles and Prophets today, there is no longer confusion
concerning which wind of doctrine is correct for we have someone
speaking the doctrine after hearing it from God. The Church of Jesus
Christ has been restored!
Love,
Elder Beutler
