Meeting a Seventy, the Restoration is refreshing and, ah yes, Brotherly Love.....

Hey! 

So things are going great here. We have a really good week coming up. We got a new investigator last night, which was the first in a couple weeks, so it was refreshing getting to teach the restoration again. We also have a bunch of lessons for this week already planned, which is great. Also, tomorrow we have a mission tour from Elder Clark of the Seventy. We're meeting up in Bountiful and it's like a multi-zone zone conference. We're all going to get a chance to meet Elder Clark and shake his hand, so that'll be pretty cool. And then later that night we're going to temple square with Tosha (she was sick last week), So it should be a good day.

I'll let you know how our week goes! Tell everyone I love em, except for stefan, of course........ 

Love, 

Elder Lusk

First Baptism.... with Companion, Elder Barker

General Conference!!!

So before I go on, I totally gotta tell you guys about General Conference. Priesthood session was Saturday night and that was absolutely amazing. Seeing the inside of the conference center in person for the first time is like your first time seeing the mountains. It's absolutely amazing. The organ is huge! We had front row seats, too. We got there pretty early, and were sitting on the front row on the far left of the plaza. We sat with our ZL's and the elder who trained Elder Barker, which could make him my grandpa. That's not even the best part. When we were sitting there waiting, President Dieter F. Uchtdorf himself walked by twice and the second time he stopped to shake all of our hands. How cool is that? The Sunday morning session was also pretty good. We had forgotten about Music and the Spoken Word beforehand, so even though we showed up on time to get in, the house was already full. We took our investigator, and watched it in the theater of the conference center. So, not the same room, but same building at least, and it was on a giant screen, so I guess it worked out. I felt like the whole session was directed to her, and she felt that way, too. It ended up being really good. We're taking her to temple square tomorrow (we had to reschedule because the temple square sisters had a meeting Friday night) and we're hoping that that'll be the final push to get her to commit to a baptism date. 

Aside from that is was just an average week in the life of a salt lake city missionary serving the Lord. I'm sending a part two in a few minutes that'll have some pics, so stay tuned.

Love Elder Jake Lusk

Not Afraid to Ask and Imagine if You Were Blind

 

     We've got a pretty exciting week coming up here. General conference is at the end of the week, and we've got tickets to at least the sunday morning session as well as the priesthood session. That's going to be really cool. What's even more excitign about it is we're taking one of our investigators to the sunday morning session. We're supposed to anyways, and we picked the one that we knew would be impacted the most by it. Her name's {}and I think I've briefly told you a little about her without giving her name. She's 27 and has lived in SLC all her life. She has four kids and a pit bull and is pretty much single (long story). Everything that's happened so far has been pretty amazing with her. We were contacting another potential investigator when it was like our second or third day in the area, and he wasn't home. As we were walking away, we got the impression to go back and talk to this lady sitting on her front porch. It didn't seem to weird at the time (even though it involved us turning around and walking back a few houses) becuase we were hardcore about our policy of talking to literally everyone those first couple weeks. We started talking to her and found out that she had lived in Utah since she was a kid, and for 27 years had never talked to a single missionary. She decided to talk to us that night becuase she had been praying hard the night before for guidance and help in her life, and felt like us showing up to talk to her was a sign, especially since it was unplanned. On our first lesson, we invited her to read and pray about the Book of Mormon, which she did later that night and ended up having a dream where she was at her old church (she was born and raised{}, but recently baptized into a [different] church) and it didn't feel right, and something told her she was supposed to be in the Mormon church. We've been teaching her for over a month now and it's been going really well. One of the things I love about her is that she's not afraid to ask questions. If she has a concern or doesn't understand something, she'll ask about it. Once we explain things, then she gets it, and makes sure we know when she gets it and when she doesn't. One of her main concerns is with modern prophets, especially Joseph Smith. She's told us she really wants to believe and be in the church, but wants to have some concerns eased first. A little bit of inspiration came when we were teaching her at an elderly couple's house nearby and we invited her to general conference with us, as well as a visit to temple square. I'm super excited for this weekend coming up becuase I feel like that'll be the key that'll get her to the point where she's ready to get baptized.

 

On a slightly different note, this is specifically for Stefan...

 

Bro...

 

Imagine if you were blind...

Complete darkness...

No colors, no views, no beauty, just pitch black.

If you were blind, ask yourself how badly you'd want to see.

And if pushing yourself to the limits could give you sight, would you do it?

If there was a cure, would you let anything stand in your way?

Would you risk the haters and the critics to see again?

Do you really want to succeed?
Would you really care if they mocked you, laughed at you, pointed at you, or bad mouthed you?

Would you be concerned about your extreme goal, or just embrace the extreme work?

What if you had to learn hurt, trust pain, and embrace struggle?

Would you still be concerned with being realistic?
Would you still figure your odds and calculate your chances?

If you had to spend more time planning your workouts and less time planning your weekends, woudl it even be a tough choice?

If the cure for blindness was humility and pain, would you go for it?

If the cure for blindness was looking foolish, would you risk it?

If seeing again took a fight, would you start swinging?

If the cure was doing things you can't do, would you attempt them?

If a few extra hours, a few more drops of sweat, and a little more blood was all it took, would you claim your sight?

Do you really want to succeed?

Then choose to be blind and do whatever it takes to succeed...

Because if you don't, you're just blind anyway...

 

All I can add to that is HOO-AH! Hit me back, I want to get your thoughts on it.

 

Love you all!

 

Love,  Elder Jake Lusk