Tuesday, November 5, 2013

October 30, 2013- Letter Home & Alma Analogy

Dear Family,
Sorry it took me a couple of days to send this!  I have been pretty busy.  Monday night was good because we went out and visited a non-member family.  They have been friends with a lot of different LDS people and they just moved into our area a few weeks ago.  So we visit them from time to time.  Tuesday I went on exchanges with the District Leaders-Elder G & Elder T.  They are pretty neat guys!

Exchanges go over a 24-hour period. So I stayed the night and made German Pancakes for them in the morning!  They loved it!  It was really good.  We visited a few members and investigators while I was on exchanges.

One such "eternigator" (eternal investigator) was named "B".  Poor guy.  He's been in  a lot of back pain for his whole life.  So at 60, he doesn't do much.  He inherited $85,000 and he blew all of it on Redskin (the football team) fan stuff and on movies.  When you walk in to his apartment, all you see is movies & Redskin stuff.  He wears Redskin slippers & pj's , has like 14 Redskin blankets and about 400 movies.  It's kinda funny.  Lesson to be learned is all things in moderation.

I can't believe Tyler finally got his Visa! Thats awesome!

My rain gear is fine actually!  I'm more worried about winter because in our area, from what we know, there's no stores that would sell winter stuff.  I guess we will find out!

Good thing we got the shoulder bag over the backpack!  They made an announcement last week that all backpacks have to be gone by December 31st.  Which is fine because we won't have to carry much anyway, just ipads.

I have my bike water bottle and even if I run out, people always offer us something to drink. It's funny because whenever we visit the O family they say, "we know you don't drink beer, but would you like water or Gatorade?"  Haha! We find it pretty funny.

S is doing alright.  We didn't get to meet with her last Thursday and she didn't come to Church on Sunday because Church makes her feel terrible.  We have other single moms in our ward though, so we will introduce S to them!

Hardest thing?  Sleep, by a long shot.  Just getting up on time really sucks, especially since I get really wacko dreams and it exhausts me.  By the time I wake up I feel as if I ran a marathon.  I love it though.  Dreams are a gift and I wouldn't get rid of hem. 

As a companionship we focus on a lot of different things.  Generally if we have an investigator then we will study for that investigators needs.  We also focus on just the main points we need to improve on.  We do pretty well. 
We teach pretty much from our hearts.  Actually, I take that back.  We don't teach.  We just inform and explain to our investigators what the gospel is or what a specific principle is.  The one who does the teaching & testifying is the Spirit.  We would get nowhere without the Spirit.

Service is awesome!  It is THE best part of missionary work.  There is never enough of it.  Especially since the the "H" family moved.  They were our main source of service.  Since then, we've only done a few things here and there.

Just know that I really love all of you.  I pray for each of you every night & morning. 

This gospel is true! Never forget it!

love
Elder Dex Armstrong

PS I included an analogy I found in Chapter 43 of Alma!

Alma 43
Moroni & his armies = Us
Alma = The Spirit
The Lamanites = Satan
Lehi & his armies = Living the Gospel




At first, we understand where Satan will attack us (vs 18).
We prepare to meet him.  Satan understands that we are prepared in that area (vs 19)
So we need to pray to know where & how to be strengthened (vs 23 & 24)
We then protect our strong areas but mainly focus on the weaker parts (vs 25)
We need to give our all (vs 26)
We diligently live the Gospel (vs 35 & 36)
Satan will fight exceedingly well (vs 43)
We will probably get discouraged but we need to turn to the Lord and remember why we are are fighting (vs 48 & 49)
We will win the fight (vs 54)

When Satan tries to attack us in those areas again, something like this will happen (Alma 49:3-4, 8-9, 14-15). We can astonish Satan and he cannot win (49:23)



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