1-19-15

Hello!

Quote: This is what I say a lot to people on the street. I might just cut this out and have people read it when I meet them! haha I Encourage you to post this on Facebook and blogs and share it with your friends and stuff!... 

"When we invite you to attend church with us or to learn with the full-time missionaries, we are not trying to sell you a product. As members of the Church, we do not receive prizes or bonus points in a heavenly contest. We are not seeking simply to increase the numerical size of the Church. And most importantly, we are not attempting to coerce you to believe as we do. We are inviting you to hear the restored truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ so you can study, ponder, pray, and come to know for yourself if the things we are sharing with you are true.

Some of you may respond, “But I already believe in Jesus and follow His teachings,” or “I am not sure if God really exists.” Our invitations to you are not an attempt to diminish your religious tradition or life experience. Bring all that you know is true, good, and praiseworthy—and test our message. Just as Jesus beckoned two of His disciples to “come and see”(John 1:39), so we urge you to come and see if the restored gospel of Jesus Christ enlarges and enriches that which you already believe to be true." -Elder Bednar

This week was great! It started off with mission leadership council with all the other zone leaders and the APs and President and Sister Christensen. It was a super cool meeting! We talked about our focus for this month in our mission which is "We invite, we commit, we follow up". After that meeting we traveled back to our area and planned until the end of the night with the Sister training leaders on what we wanted to train on and how we wanted to do it and stuff. Elder Killpack and I focused on inviting and how we can love people while still being bold and not overbearing. We committed each companionship to get 5 baptismal invitations a week. We are trying not to focus so much on the results, but rather our own efforts. We feel as we really focus on inviting, then it's okay if people don't accept because we did our part. I feel like Elder Killpack and I taught really well together and the spirit was definitely present. We shared about how Jonah originally was scared and tried to flea from the Lord when he first got his mission call. Because of that he was swallowed by a big fish and became completely useless to the Lord until he repented and went forth to do his mission. When he did that, it caused the entire city of Ninevah to repent and become righteous! Pretty cool!  We also shared the new youth theme video for the year "Embark". https://www.lds.org/youth/video/embark-in-the-service-of-god-2015-theme-song?lang=eng ... Check it out... it is pretty sweet. Analyze the last few years of youth themes and you will see that the church has gradually been preparing and progressing for now, to "embark in the service of God" and help along side in this work. 

In other news this week, we met a super funny lady that lived in California for 6 years but has terrible English and she took us to dinner and wanted to pitch us her business. It was really funny... I wish I could describe her better. But I have never laughed so hard on my mission and I have never seen Elder Killpack laugh so hard in his life!!! We were bother nearly in tears! I wish I could explain the situation better. She was just a really funny old woman. Anyways, good times.

We have one investigator that is looking pretty decent right now for baptism. He slept through church yesterday, but other than that he is keeping commitments and doing pretty well! We are excited for that! In miscellaneous news, the Elders in our district sang in sacrament meeting yesterday (I was going to record it, but missed it...:( sorry). That was okay. Anyways, the work is going well! I am enjoying the things I am learning and love the spirit up here and the work that is happening and what not. The church is true! That is the most important thing and after that, it doesn't matter what life throws at us. Love and pray for you all! Have a great week!

-Elder Hobson