Week 29 - Jan 14, 2019

This week felt long but it was good. My companion tried to taze me with a tazer that was at an investigators house as a joke. He like reached out to taze me and I grabbed his arm and turned it back at him and it hit a gun that was hanging on the wall and it fell and broke. Whoops. I'm going to start out with the bad news before the good stuff. So irá, a mom we were teaching with 7 kids, had her husband tell her that she can't talk with us anymore. I was so sad because irá was sooo interested in the gospel. When we shared the restoration she was like "this is insane and it makes so much sense". She read some chapters From the Book of Mormon and then she said her husband took the book out of her hands and won't let her read it anymore. I told myself she'll accept it in the spirit world if she doesn't get the chance here. Other than that though, we found some cool people and set 4 baptismal dates this week! The first is with a lady named olivia and her Son! She is so cool and we came over 3 days in a row to teach lessons to her. She has read from the book of Mormon every single time we've asked - thats something that doesn't usually Happen. She is a blessing. Then we are teaching Leticia, Rhianna, and Jazlyn. They are all girls ranging from 16-20 but they don't have parents and  live together and are their own "family". It's super cool to help and teach them because they want to become better and get closer to God together. Jazlyn and Rhianna accepted baptismal dates but Leticia hasn't yet - hopefully she will follow their example :) Luis came to church this week and it was super good! He said that he loved it. This week I learned some cool things about the gospel.

Acts 3
 19 ¶ Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing (the restoration) shall come from the presence of the Lord;
20 And he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you:
21 Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.
22 For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you. (Joseph Smith)
23 And it shall come to pass, that every soul, which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people.

In this scripture we learn that there had to be a "restitution of all things" (v21) when the restoration happens - Everything that was done by prophets since the world began had to be done again or restored to the earth to bring the fulness again.

Why that matters? Things like Polygamy. It was done by prophets of old, so actually, for the restoration to be complete, it HAD to happen again just as we learn in this scripture. Joseph Smith hated the idea of it, but it had to happen again as prophets of old had been required to do it. It goes the same for almost every single thing that other people would call "contradictory" that our church did. In order to bring the fulness of the gospel back, this HAD to happen, whether the people doing it liked it or not. It was a commandment!

This is the last week of the transfer so we'll see what happens but I feel like I'm going to stay here in San Benito for next transfer. 

Sorry for the long email. Shoutout to you if you actually read the whole thing hahaha. 

Until next week :)

Elder Freedman