Wednesday June 4th, 2008

Hello!
I'm praying for Sam and everyone all the time. I don't like to imagine him being in the situation that he is; I imagine it's a little more difficult actually being there, but all will work out in the end. We have to suffer through these trials in order to grow. President Frei said yesterday at zone conference that sacrifice is just preperation for receiving more blessings, and I liked that. Pay your tithing. Study the scriptures EVERY DAY without fail. Pay fast offerings. Have family prayer. Go to church. Love it! There is no greater blessing than being a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the only true and living church on the face of the earth. There are 6 BILLION people in the world and only 13 million are members. I don't even know how many people I've met already who think they're saved just because their pastor said so, and I feel bad for them because they're not willing to open their hearts and ask Heavenly Father for guidance. It makes getting rejected and treated badly easier to handle though. BUT TAKE ADVANTAGE OF ALL THE BLESSINGS WE CAN GET FROM KEEPING THE COMMANDMENTS!! Think of how lucky we are to know the truth! How selfish is it to be disobedient to the God who has been kind enough to show us the way to return back to him?
Yesterday at zone conference President Frei also talked about how we can obligate God to bless us when we do what he asks of us. There will be times when we can kneel down and say "ok, Heavenly Father, I've done my part, it's your turn now." And he will be completely obligated to pour blessings upon our heads. If we don't pay our tithing, we're screwing ourselves out of blessings. We're taking our ticket to the kingdom of heaven and tearing it to shreds. Just as an example. Anyway, that's all.
Today my LZs, the APs and another companionship in our zone went to President Frei's back yard and played some basketball and some volleyball. And I ate at Subway again. It was amazing. My Dad, Elder Wilson, is my LZ, so that's cool. He's going home this transfer.The work is going very well. Janice, the woman who died and ressuscitated, is getting interviewed tonight and baptized on Sunday. This past Sunday she got up and bore her testimony, and it was AWESOME. I was so proud, I told everyone around me "that's my investigator!" We're also teaching the rest of her family, and they all have dates for next Sunday.The past Sunday morning, instead of regular church, everyone went to our chapel and watched the satellite broadcast of the Curitiba Temple dedication. I sat in a group of 8 missionaries (6 Americans), and the whole time they were doing the part where President Monson and a bunch of other people go up and put mortar on the wall, we were the only ones laughing because President Monson kept making hilarious side comments, but the translator didn't translate any of the comments that he made- only when he addressed the crowd. But it was a great experience. There are now 5 working temples in Brazil; soon to be 6 when the one in Manaus is finished. We had a testimony meeting later that afternoon.
Elder Franklin, from Alaska, is great. He's going home this transfer, too. He's a great missionary- I've already learned a lot from him.
Here's a funny missionary story that happened to an Elder here recently. He was teaching a woman who was very receptive to the 1st lesson, but had heard a lot of bad things about the church, especially in regards to the temples. She kept mentioning that she heard the church was a cult or sect and that sort of weirdness that people spread around. The Elder decided to leave the lesson, quickly explaining to her that the Lord wants us to keep his commandments, and that he will provide a way for us to keep every one of them, and he left 1 Nephi 3:7 for her to read. Or rather, he thought he did. What he actually left was 3 Nephi 3:7, the part that talks about the bad secret combinations and says: "Or in other words, yield yourselves up unto us, and unite with us and become acquainted with our secret works, and become our brethren that ye may be like unto us—not our slaves, but our brethren and partners of all our substance." Oops.
The other night I got my first haircut from a missionary- or, 3. It took 3 Elders an hour and a half to cut my hair because none of them had ever done it before, and I wouldn't let them just buzz it. They had to use scissors. It turned out surprisingly well. I'll send pictures next week.
Anyway, that's all I've got for this week. Pictures to come next week, I hope.
Love,
Elder Sisco