New Companion and finding faith

Last time all four of us at the house Elder Hansen, Elder Pukahi, Elder Kiser, Elder Wardell 

Elder Jarman (Elder Pukahi's new comp) Elder Wardell, Elder Bedke 

My soda abstinence kind of ended when someone mentioned Voltage!!!

5-4-15

weeeell here's the scoop.

so, i got a new companion. his name is Elder Bedke. He's kinda your average, NOT AVERAGE! haha. For those who don't quite undertand my insanity, that means HE'S AMAZING!!!

mainly because i was able to explain Star Trek to him and he loved it! haha He's kind of a young pup, he actually entered the mission with mi hijo (my son) and funny enough, elder hansen and elder Bedke swapped areas! it was funny. but he's a CHAMP. he already speaks spanish bastante (well enough) and is just awesome at teaching. He's really humble, very intelligent, and he tells intelligent jokes which are just the best. we just get along really well! i love him he's awesome! 

Well Maria came to church this last week! by herself too! And something really cool happened, we have been trying and trying and trying to get maria to stay for 2nd hour, and she never has wanted to, but this last sunday, after sacrament meeting, she just popped up and said, so tell me about the next hour whats it like? funny enough right before she said that i just thought to myself, i'm not gonna ask her because then we are just pushing too much. (faith is amazing!) And so to answer her question we just said, well, we'll just show you. so we went back to the class, showed her the class introduced her to some peeps, and she stayed! and really got into the class reading scriptures, smiling, getting friendly with a really cool sister in the ward, and most importantly, feeling the spirit. 

It was really nice. her progression is finaly starting to speed up so that is amazing! 

Well, sadly we had to drop thomas this last week. :( it's never fun to drop people. Especially when you realize and understand the improtance of the words: Restored Gospel. It's really actually HEARTBREAKING. But sadly what had happened is thomas, who had a wonderful, growing testimony, decided to try and find more answers from "man" meaning he went online, and looked around on some blogs and such and such and did some "research". And when we met with him again, he very gently said that he wont be able to get baptised because he got an answer that the book isn't true, and then told us about all of the stuff that he found. and so then i shared with him. Elder Bedke shared an AWESOME experience about recieveing an answer, and then i shared alma 32, 27-29? something around there haha, 

 26 Now, as I said concerning faith—that it was not a perfect knowledge—even so it is with my words. Ye cannot know of their surety at first, unto perfection, any more than faith is a perfect knowledge.

 27 But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words.

 28 Now, we will compare the word unto a seed. Now, if ye give place, that a seed may be planted in your heart, behold, if it be a true seed, or a good seed, if ye do not cast it out by your unbelief, that ye will resist the Spirit of the Lord, behold, it will begin to swell within your breasts; and when you feel these swelling motions, ye will begin to say within yourselves—It must needs be that this is a good seed, or that the word is good, for it beginneth to enlarge my soul; yea, it beginneth to enlighten my understanding, yea, it beginneth to be delicious to me.

Quite simply, what that means, is that we can go to God for answers. Thomas kept mentioning, "but they've done studies.." the simple fact of the matter, is that when you look at the nature of God in the scriptures, and in the book of mormon, no amount of MAN'S study, will ever definitely prove the truth of the book of mormon, or of joseph smith as a prophet. If those things are of God, we must go to god, and GOD ONLY to find the truthfulness of answers. Thomas, did not do that. he didn't completely show his faith in god, because he went to man for his answer. And because he didn't completely trust in god, he didn't get an answer. He was genuinely looking for an answer, but was looking in the wrong place. Man's studies will never hold the answers to the "mysteries of god". This is the reason why it is important for us to gain a testimony of the book of mormon, as the word of god, and The restoration of the gospel through a living prophet. because then answers can be found in the right places. That is what we tried to get through to thomas, and i'm hoping he got it. We commited him to read the book of mormon, and ONLY the book of mormon to get an answer. We will be following up with him, and i'm hoping that it will be good. Well i love yall! gotta run but take care! 

Elder Wardell