Families are forever

Hey ya'll,

Glad to hear everything is swell in Redmond.  I'm so jealous you got to go to the temple! I wish there was a Charlotte North Carolina temple.

We've been teaching a mother and daughter that live in our neighborhood this week. They both want to get baptized, which is awesome, we just need them to come to church.  Anyways, the daughter called us Sunday afternoon and told us her sister wants to meet with us now and wants to be baptized into our church.  We went and met them, there was some crazy junk going on in that neighborhood so we didn't stick around long, but they seem super nice and we're super excited to teach them!

We ran into a couple while we were looking through a list of perspective elders. They weren't really buying the church's stance on some issues so it was awkward and we didn't really know what else to share with them.  Elder Clarke told me he was trying to think of something to say to get us out of there, then I just randomly asked this guy if he'd done any family history before and we ended up having a hour long conversation on family history and familysearch.org. If they're not interested in religion you can usually get em' with family history.

I've been studying the Book of Mormon a lot lately. I did a really deep study of Nephi's vision in 1 Nephi chapters 11-15. There's a lot of really cool stuff in there. I've also been reading parts of Isaiah that talk about the great apostasy and the restoration and the last days. Basically I'm just trying to deepen my testimony of the restoration and the need for Christ's gospel to be restored to the earth.

So far I think my favorite part of my mission has been studies. It's so nice to sit and read form the scriptures for 3 hours a day. I've learned a ton! I'm gonna try and read all the standard works before I hit my year mark. Speaking of which, next week is the last week of the transfer! I can't believe how fast time is going!!!! I don't think I'm going to get transferred though, and we're hoping Elder Clarke is going to stay too.

I was talking to a member the other day that recently moved here from Utah. He said on the first day of school, his kids came home really confused. They said all the other kids at school were asking them who they lived with.  They couldn't understand that some kids still live with both their mom and their dad. It's so sad how much the family has been degraded in the past few years. I've been in and out of many homes here and it's rare that you find a family with a married mom and dad and kids. It's so sad. I'm so grateful for my family and even more grateful I can be with them for time and all eternity. I'm so grateful the priesthood has been restored so that families can be bound both in heaven and on earth and that marriages are not "till death do you part" but are "for time and all eternity". God's plan for us is perfect, and it's centered around the family and the gospel of Jesus Christ. One of my favorite chapters in the Book of Mormon is 2 Nephi 9. It talks all about God's plan for us and why we're on this earth and what we need to focus on while we're here. Great stuff, I'd invite ya'll to read over it when you get a chance.

Anyways, thanks for writing to me! I like to hear about what's going on at home in ya'lls letters. It's not so much what's in the letters, just that you write them to me. I love reading them so keep sending them I'll try to send more letters to the kids! Till next week,

Elder Earnest

Making use of his Eagle Crest golf course maintenance experience.