Zac's Letter: June 5, 2010

Dearest Family

 

It sounds like the new boat is a hoot!  If only you guys could have this amazing weather we've been having out here you'd be set!  It's been warm and not too humid but basically perfect for boating, and missionary work of course.  What kind of boat did you guys get anyway?

 

This past week we had exchanges with Oskaloosa, Iowa City, Cedar Rapids and Boone.  It has been a ton of driving but a lot of fun.  There are some really cool ZL's out there so it's great to be able to serve with so many of them.  It seems like everytime we do exchanges we end up doing a ton of tracting which is fine with me but I really miss teaching.

 

The one way sweet lesson I had this past week was when I was in Iowa City with Elder DeVries.  We taught this lady named Susan who they tracted into the previous day who was so cool!  My favorite part was being able to apply all the training we have given and see it all come together.  I felt like we taught to her needs more then I ever have before.  We introduced baptism from the beginning, explained the spirit to her and then pointed out when the spirit was really strong in the lesson.  She even said she could feel the spirit.  We commited her to baptism and it was all text book.  I have always been a little gun shy about pointing out the spirit to people and commiting them to be baptized but now if we have a lesson and don't set a baptismal date I feel we haven't fulfilled our purpose.

 

In Cedar Rapids we had a lesson with a less active who hasn't been to church for 2 years.  He grew up Mormon and his wife got baptized when they got married but at some point in their life they decided going to church was no longer that important.  We taught him the Restoration but not just principle by principle, instead it was all for him and everything we taught had a significance for him and for something he needed to do in his life.  He also said in the lesson how much he felt a closeness with God that he hadn't felt for a long time and he commited to making the changes in his life that would help him to have that again.

 

It has been so amazing this past week to see how powerful and real the spirit is when you are confident and bold.  Now that I don't get to teach a whole lot I realize how precious every lesson is and how spiritual every lesson can and should be.  God is real, the church is true and I love you all so much!

 

Love

Elder Jergensen