INVITE TO ACT . . .

October 3, 2016

Hello Ya'll!

The words " WE INVITE YOU TO ACT" are not words from us but from our Heavenly Father and our loving Savior. These words speak loud to all those that hear them and when they hear them they are free to choose whether to act or not but they cannot build up their testimony without first reading the Book of Mormon or by then praying about what we as missionaries or members teach about. In one of the lessons we have as missionaries in preparing us throughout our mission is we invite people to commit and we follow up. In this we find that the only way to have success in this struggle to strengthen testimonies is to commit people to things such as praying to know what we testify is true or by reading the scriptures and really pondering. These commitments bind that person to finding out for themselves what we teach is true.  We find it tough in our day to day lives to help people see that the commitments are to help them in strengthening their testimony. As missionaries we teach that when we read the Book of Mormon or we go to church that we feel closer to our Savior Jesus Christ but it goes deeper and we work to make sure members and nonmembers see that with keeping commitments they aren't promising the missionaries or the member friends but they are actually promising the Lord himself to go to church and to continue reading the BoM as well as reviewing the missionary lessons daily.

One of the MANY cotton fields in the South

Well this week has been one that I am excited to share was a very successful week :).

Thursday me and Elder Benesh went knocking in the hot sun and we wanted to die but we made it a goal to knock for one hr everyday so that's what we did. We were lead to three houses and these people were very open to learning more:). I knocked on a door and this guy answered. I said, "Hi, we are missionaries-" and the guy said ya sure come on in. We were so confused but we went in and we talked to them for a few minutes and we get to go back tomorrow to talk with them some more :).

Friday we had interviews and then went out to lunch with the new senior couple in our zone. We then came home and started working to get things ready for the rest of our day. We took a member with us and that was great because he had served a mission and also taught in the MTC so he was so much help.

Baby Gators

Saturday and Sunday were about the same as ya'll at home. We watched Conference at the church building and that was a blessing to be able to watch it. We also watched a session at the Flakes house (new couple missionaries). I enjoyed the talk about member missionaries, because we all need to remember that throughout our lives. We are working now to fill our teaching pool and we have some very good potential in these people out here:).

Sounds like y'all had a very busy week as well. Dylan stop getting tackled, just be like Forrest Gump and just keep running :). I know that we may get down on ourselves a lot because we want to be better than we were the day before but we sometimes bite off more than we can chew. In conference (by the way, I stayed awake) we learned that little by little we make a difference from either visiting or home teaching to actual missionaries. We all help each other to strengthen our testimony in Christ :).

Love y'all and please write me letters:)

Love Elder MCEWAN

P.S. We saw some baby gators and even had gator tail one day (it tastes like chicken :)). We also see plenty of turtles.

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2 Nephi 31:20