2 September 2013

Hey! That's so awesome to hear about your missionary experience! I'm really excited about it so I'll talk about that first. As far as following up with them, I would suggest first asking God for direction in what to do and secondly, share something interesting that you read or learned about in the Book of Mormon when they ask you how your weekend was. Now that they know a little bit more about the church, you can let them know something that you learned from Sunday that helped or strengthened you that week and what the Book of Mormon had to say about it. Bringing it up like that can hopefully spur some further discussion on the matter. Just continue to remain their friends and seek the Lord's will in your decisions with them. It's so great to hear that the work is going great back home and out here as well. This weekend was really excited. I'm so happy for the excitement that is growing with this ward about missionary work. Rozay and Ques (Quay's younger brother) were baptized this past Saturday and confirmed yesterday. I'm so happy to see how the gospel will continue to change their lives and give them much needed direction in life. I hope to see both of those young men serve missions. Donovan, the cousin of some less-active members, was baptized after church yesterday. He's really involved in marching band so his weekdays and weekends are completely booked except for Sunday, so we had a wonderful Sunday baptism. He'll be confirmed next week. We're having a lot of success with less-active members as well. It was excited to have two people who hadn't been to church in years come back and feel the joy of a very powerful testimony meeting. We hope to continue to help them see how the gospel will bless them and help them have peace amidst lifes greatest challenges. I love this gospel. We met some fantastic people last night. AND I have a miracle to share with yall too. I'll start with the people we met last night. It was about 7 o'clock Sunday evening and we had just tried to contact a less-active in this apartment complex. It didn't look like anyone was home so we started to drive out of the complex. Both Elder Lee and I felt pretty impressed to go back and knock a few doors before heading to the next person on our plans so we did so. There were lots of different buildings in the complex but ultimately we decided to start with building J. after 3 doors of noone answering and 1 door of someone who was busy and told us to come back later, we met this awesome guy named Keenan. Keenan just moved in a week ago and he's playing basketball for a local college. He said he used to attend a baptist church up in Charleston but hasn't found a church to attend here. While we were learning more about him his roommate Riley comes in. He's also playing basketball for the same college. He however comes from a Methodist background. They both have been childhood friends but have had a lot of questions about religion like, "why are there so many different churches when there's only one God?". We explained how God has worked with his children in the past through prophets and how Christ church was established and then there was a falling away and everything was just clicking with them. Riley even said, "in my history class we were learning how there just used to be one Christian church (the Catholics) awhile after Christ died. How'd that get started up?". When we explained the apostasy they understood it completely and started saying that there should be another prophet on the Earth, like how God did it in the past. Perfect segway into the Restoration :) They felt the Spirit as they listened intently to the First Vision and accepted the invitation to act on the promptings that they felt and first pray and confirm the witness that they felt and then act on it and prepare for baptism. It's amazing to see how the Spirit supports our boldness as missionaries. In an hour a heart was changed to decide to take the first steps into the celestial kingdom. Nothing but the truth could lead people to desire to do this in such a short time. I love it :) Miracle 2: Brandon, one of our investigators that we met last week, is a self-defined "truthseeker". He wants the truth, nothing but the truth and has recognized all throughout his life the different flaws in many of the religions today. He said it makes no sense that God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost are literally one being. They just had to be seperate. We've taught him the Restoration and the Plan of Salvation this past week and he really has felt the Spirit as we've taught him and even accepted to prepare for baptism on the 21st. He was out of town this weekend but yesterday we decided that we needed to reschedule our appointment that we have tonight with him to a later time. After we texted him this is the text message that he sent back to us. "yes. its funny u called. I just got done reading THE RESTORATION. And i was praying for somthing like a sight to know this ministry was true and after I said amen i began to read and then you called. that must mean the things I have read to be true." God is literally a God of miracles. We can choose to take miracles and brush them off as coincidences or we can take time to see the hand of God in our lives. It's amazing getting to do this work and experiences these blessings 24/7. I love being a missionary with all my heart. I'm so grateful for the constant support of yall and for everything that yall do to help me be out here. Yall are the best :D Love, Elder Nair