Email from Elder Lofthouse 3/31/14

Hello family and friends!

It's been a long week. A lot of good things happened though. We had 6 investigators at church, twice as many as last week. 4 of those were the Q family. We were really focusing on helping them get to church this week. On Monday we had an FHE with the bishop where we talked about faith. Then we had a lesson with Sister Q where we re-explained the importance of the Sabbath day. She said that it's her husband who has to provide for the family and pay the rent and she can't really say anything about it. Thursday we got a chance to teach her husband and had a great lesson. We promised him blessings for keeping the commandments and he commited to God in the closing prayer that he would be at church on Sunday. And he was! They have their baptismal interviews on Friday, they'll be watching conference, and right after the last session will be baptized. Finally!

Our other investigator who should be baptized in April is R.  His ex-wife is a member, and after making a lot of bad life choices he now wants to change and become a good father.  He comes to church every week with her and his kids.  He lives across the street from a member and her dry-mormon husband, L, who is his uncle.  We're hoping to start teaching him in their home and maybe we can help L to finally make the decision to be baptized (he goes to church every single week and has for years and years).  

We also had an investigator tell a couple friends about us.  They're looking for a church and though he's never gone himself he recommended us.  They're names are F and M and in our first lesson with them they accepted a baptismal date for May 3rd.  They are the nicest people in the world.  Sadly they didn't show up at church yesterday, but we'll get them there.

Today I read that, "Humility is the fountain of all virtues" in the Adjusting to Missionary Life booklet.  That confirmed the conclusion I've come to over the last few weeks of my studies. 

Salvation starts with humility.

We can't repent unless we have faith in Jesus Christ.  And "[no man] can have faith and hope, save he shall be meek, and lowly of heart" (Moroni 7:43).  The examples of Enos, King Benjamin's people, and Alma the younger show that we must first be humble and recognize the need for the Atonement of Christ before it can be applied in our lives.  What is the goal of this life?  To prepare to receive eternal life.  How do we do that?  Living the gospel.

Mosiah 3:19 teaches that we must become humble, submissive, meek, and willing to submit to God's will.  We can only do that through the power of the atonement and by heeding the influence of the Holy Spirit.  We must first be humble if we ever want to make any progress. 

I love you all and I hope you have a great week!

Love,

Elder Lofthouse