19 May 2013

Hey yall!

Thanks for everything this past week! Especially the letters. I accidently started opening the birthday card, I'll have to admit I was surprised to see it as early as it came haha. But once I figured out what it was I put it back in the envelope and set it away for the 28th. Thanks for the love and support that yall give me. It makes things so much easier to know there are people who care about you back home.

 I really appreciate that story from your childhood. I always really like hearing stories like that. It makes it seem like the world was so much more interesting before all this technology and stuff hit the market. It's sad to see families splitting up all over the world. There just isn't that same love that once used to be there. It brings me a lot of heartache seeing what people have to go through but I'm so grateful for the opportunity I have to impact people's lives for good and help them see the joy of the gospel. 

Audrey was baptized and confirmed this past weekend :) She's great. Pray for her mother and step father. They are being a big source of opposition at the moment. They used to be so great but they've been having their faith tried quite a bit right now. They've been having struggles with anti-Mormon material and don't want to meet with us. But I hope Audrey and Myeshia's examples will eventually bring a mighty change in their hearts. I truly want the best for them.

On a lighter note, I'm excited to go to the temple and do baptisms on June 10th with Audrey and Myeshia! President gave us permission to be a part of that so that's going to be very exciting. Our stake is having a temple day which is great. I know that Myeshia and Audrey are going to love the spirit that they feel at the temple :)

I love how you can keep improving. I would hate to be at a total standstill in my life. There's so much more that you can be, always. I see myself becoming a better missionary day by day and week by week. When I think of where I was at when I got to the MTC until now, there's so much that has changed about me. I love the scriptures so much. You can read the same scripture over and over again and bring something new out of it each time.

I love people. All of my brothers and sisters on this Earth need this message. It makes me so sad to see agency used to go against the will of God. I know how much pain it brings these people even when they don't realize it. It makes me want to work so much harder and be so much better. But as I look at this work and marvel in all of the beauties of God I recognize my nothingness before him. Of myself I am literally nothing. It's amazing to me how personally invested God is in each one of our lives. Every breath we take is a gift from him and it makes my heart swell with joy at the thought that I'm important enough to God to receive a new day of my life. I truly long to be in his presence with all of my brothers and sisters someday. I know that this takes work on my part however. I hope to continue to live worthy of God's love until I too can receive the personal assurance that I am a friend of God. This gospel just isn't like anything else. The joy that I feel just isn't a figment of my imagination. It's as real as sun shines. I know that no man could have all these fruits brought forth unless he was directly inspired by God. Out here you hear a lot about these "prophets" that go around healing people and starting up churches, but there's so much more to being a prophet than being able to heal. True prophets bring the gospel, they bring the ordinances of salvation to those around him. They are the means that God uses to heal the spirit. Having a broken leg fixed will not help you return to God's presence. But the authority of God to baptize will. I feel so blessed to have a knowledge of this since my youth. 

I love the temple. I love being close to God. It makes me so happy. I know that through Christ, this happiness will continue throughout the rest of my life.

Thanks again for the birthday gift! It's exactly what I had hoped for :) There are some great places to eat up in Tabor City and apparently there's a place that claims to serve Chicago-style deep dish pizza. I'll have to be the judge of that :P So I'll get to go test it out with my currently district leader Elder Memmott (who as you know has been my trainer and zone leader in the past). I love yall so much. Thank you for your prayers and everything that yall do.

Love,

Elder Nair

1 May 2013

Hey! It was great talking to yall yesterday. I love yall so much. Things are just as good as they were yesterday :) Missions are awesome :D I love the gospel.

 

Love,

Elder Nair

On Mon, May 6, 2013 at 10:56 AM, Ezra Nair <ezra.nair@myldsmail.net> wrote:

O yeah! Good stuff!

That's so great to hear that Solomon and Amanda were able to be a light like that for someone. I know how much an eternal difference that will make when they are sealed in the temple in a year's time. I was thinking about eternal families the other day after talking with Rodney (the husband of Audrey's mom) yesterday. He was talking about how he asked his preacher about heaven and how he said we'll all be just brothers and sisters but won't be in our families. Rodney said "I never felt right about that, for some reason I just always figured we'd be with our families" it was a great opportunity to testify of restored priesthood authority and how families can truly be together forever, but that the restored gospel of Christ is the only way that that is possible. I love this gospel. It truly brings so much hope where there is none. Myeshia (Audrey's sister) is for sure being baptized this weekend! I'm so excited for that. She's doing so well and living all the commandments and is excited about everything. Audrey had a little trial of her faith this week but after meeting with us, we had the opportunity to testify of truth to her and help her resolve all her concerns. We're seeing her again tonight and we have this 15 step program to help people stop smoking. I'm excited to try it out with her because I really think it will work. That's the only thing Audrey needs to give up for baptism. We're going to help them all get to the temple to do baptisms in early June. It's going to be such a blessing for them. Many more converts stay active when they take their own names to the temple to do baptisms for them. That's our goal right now.

Transfers were this past Wednesday. I'm still here in Marion now but with Elder Esplin. I'm going to miss Elder James. He was a great guy and I loved working with him. I'm always excited about the future though. Elder Esplin's great, He's been out 4 months. Elder Memmott (my trainer/old zone leader) is now my district leader. Our district which used to consist of us and Conway, is now us and Tabor City, NC. It's going to be fun working with Elder Memmott again. It's already been nice. But I'll get an opportunity to go on exchanges in Tabor City which will be cool as well. Elder Memmott's also training a new missionary up there for his last two transfers. I'm going to miss him a lot. He's taught me so much and helped me greatly in this work.

We had stake conference a couple weeks ago. One talk I really liked was about how Satan works in secret places. It gave an analogy of this man who was tending to his yard. It was beautiful green and lucious and as he was talking to his neighbor one day, his neighbor saw a mole cricket walk out of this man's yard. The neighbor cautioned the man and told him he needed to spray his yard for the mole crickets, but the man thought "I can't see anything wrong, i'll be alright. Everyday the man came out and his yard was just as lucious as the day before for awhile. He never saw any mole crickets and so he didn't worry about it. But one day he came out and noticed all these dead patches of grass in his yard. Mole crickets feed at night and they feed on the roots of the grass. So while you're under attack you don't even realize it before it's too late. You have to take constant inventory on things to make sure you never let your guard down without realizing it. This lady Sister Cabaniss in the branch gave a really good talk on that talk about protecting her family.

Yesterday I also got to baptize the daughter of this recent convert we've been helping out. She just turned eight on Friday and she wanted me to baptize her. It was a great experience. I love that family. Lafayette and her kids Janiah (almost 12), Synodia(10), and Kamonie (8).

I almost forgot about Mother's Day haha time is flying. I'll probably get to give you a brief call when I figure out a good time, but I'd expect it to be around 3ish our time.

Thanks for all the help.

The CD's are great, the more the merrier. If Enoch Train came out with another CD that'd be awesome if yall could get your hands on that and get me a copy of it. But yeah I'm good to go on MoTab. I have more than enough haha. The Joseph Smith CD was really good.

But how're yall enjoying working in the temple together? I miss the temple. We hope to hit our zone goal this month. Our zone is now the Conway zone instead of the Florence zone. Two new zones were made in the mission. Lots of great things happening with the change in age for missionaries. By July or June the Georgia Macan mission will be created and another one in North Carolina I believe. The work is definitely hastening. It's awesome being a part of this. There's no greater joy that I've experienced than spreading the gospel. I love being out here more than anything.

 

Love,

Elder Nair