The week of
the break of the spring is over as we converse again electronically. It sounds like everyone had a fun filled
action packed busy busy week! B going to
the Gilbert temple with the crew doing baptisms for the dead, there you go! I won't lie, when I saw the pic of the
Venezia's outing you had it took me a good while to think of what Venezia's was
and why you were sending me a picture of it, but it's all come back now so no
worries. Dad, I appreciate all the help
you've been giving me with school amidst all the tax season craziness that's
going on! Mom, loved your email! I'm looking forward to the next time I'll be
able to go to watch you and Braden sing in an EVMCO concert!
To update
you real quick, we've visited the Ramirez family once since last week. We went over the restoration again,
specifically the Book of Mormon. We had
our WML with us, and the lesson went fairly well. Br. Ramirez has a lot of questions like
"who is Joseph Smith? I've never
heard of him." and "Why him?" and "well why is it the man
you say it is today (the prophet)?" What's
nice about it is that his questions are sincere, and not combative. We ended the visit by bearing testimony of the
importance scripture plays in finding answers to truth. There's no doubt in my mind that anyone in
that room couldn't feel the spirit by the end of the visit.
This week we
were able to have two really neat experiences. One was last night. I don't know
how much you watched these past Olympics, but Kate Hansen, the american Luger,
(who got a
lot of air
time for dancing for her warm ups?) has some family here in town so she came
and had a fireside and talked about her experiences leading up to qualifying
for the olympic team. She did a presentation and then afterwards she did a Q
& A session. One of the interesting
things she brought up during the Q & A session was that there were some men
on the luge team that were members of the church, but were no longer
practicing. She then told about multiple
experiences where something happened to her, or when she felt like she needed a
priesthood blessing, and knew there were men who were ordained priesthood
holders, but were not worthy to exercise that priesthood. She then described how that affected her in
each of those instances and made a plea to every priesthood holder, especially
the young men in the room, to remain worthy vessels. It was a pretty powerful moment.
This week we
were also able to go to through the temple with a recent convert Elder Vance
worked with and then attend their sealing as well. Put on me to have our comp study alarm go off
in the sealing room as we were waiting for the bride and groom to enter :/ The temple matron right after that walked in
and asked for all phones to be turned off and to remember that if we did need
to communicate to whisper. The the
couple was hispanic, so the sealing was done in spanish. Suffice it so say, I didn't understand a lick
of it. I did though grow in my testimony
that the sealing power of God is on the earth, and there is no greater blessing
that we could have in this life than to be sealed for time and all eternity. We were at their wedding reception later on
that evening, and while everyone was dancing there was this group of the
bride's friends, 4 girls, that were together dancing, and then couples
scattered across the dance floor dancing. It was so apparent to me at that moment that
we are not meant to be alone and that the challenges and trials of this life
are meant to be taken on with a help meet by our side. Haha idk, I wasn't expecting to have learned
that lesson from that experience, but I was being taught it nonetheless.
Last quick
thought, I've mention the Shinn family a few times in the 6 months that I've
been here. Yesterday we had a mini
miracle! Br. Shinn and Seth and Emily
came to church! Which was the first time
all three of them came two times in a row. The Primary presidency in our ward
is on top of it too. They've assigned
Emily an opening prayer and Seth a scripture for next Sunday, so we'll see if
we can't make it three weeks in a row! Next step for them is to get Br. Shinn
married so he can get them priesthood and then bam! We'll be having ourselves a baptism in a few
weeks.
I love you
all so so very much! You a joy and a light in my life! Keep on strengthening
your faith and building your relationship with your savior!
Love,
Elder
Traasdahl
"We went to a wedding reception for a recent convert of my
comp and the wedding photographer showed us how to turn our ties into bow ties.
We gave her a pass a long card back."
"Sometimes a man needs to do some stress relieving. Elder Vance happened to catch that on camera last night"
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