Come Unto Christ

Email 6/2/17

Hello everybody,

Yesterday was an interesting Sunday. First, we had a few visitors show up to church which is always exciting. There was one American couple from Las Vegas who were in Spain visiting a friend living in the area who actually knew Elder Jarvis’ dad. I think that’s one of the first times that there have been American visitors in any one of my sacrament meetings during the mission. The other visitors were President and Hermana Andersen, our mission president and his wife! When we saw them walk into the chapel, we were nervous and though, “oh no, what’s happening?” But, it turns out they were deciding where they were going to go to church this week, realized that they’ve never been to Motril, and surprised us and all of the members here by coming. They stayed for all three hours (it was a bit stressful teaching gospel doctrine class with them there, haha) and even came to our customary lunch at the Branch President’s house afterwards.  

Something else that we did was we had a musical testimony meeting. Meaning that every member of the branch (and the visitors, too) chose their favorite hymn, bore their testimony about that hymn, and then we sang it. As the branch pianist, playing 12 hymns in one sacrament meeting was also a bit stressful, haha, but it was a really good meeting. I chose “Press Forward Saints” as my favorite hymn.

The upside to this is that this is transfer week and we found out the transfer calls a day before everyone else. Elder Jarvis is leaving to go to the Sevilla area, and my next companion here in Motril will be an Elder Pack. The only thing I know about him is that he has two transfers less time than me on the mission, and I’m looking forwards to meeting and working with him.

Last week, I came down with a cold, and it took a harder hit on my than I was expecting, so I’m still recovering right now. Nevertheless, it was still a good week and we taught a lot of good lessons. Last week, I wrote about a person who we found while we were out knocking doors, and we showed up on Saturday to meet with her again as she told us to, and she was there, ready to listen, but we couldn’t enter the house because there wasn’t another man there. Great. So, we’ll be trying again next week, bringing someone else with us this time. 

We were reading in the Book of Mormon with our investigator Juan this week, and the final invitation we find in Moroni 10:32 to “come unto Christ” has been in my mind all week:

Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God.

Coming unto Christ is basically the end result of everything we do as His disciples, members of the church, and missionaries. We have the church, the scriptures, modern day prophets, temples, and everything else so that we may be led back to the presence of our Heavenly Father through Christ’s Atonement. It is all there for that one simple purpose. Coming unto Christ is the most important thing we need to learn how to do on this earth, and having these two years of my life dedicated to helping others come unto Him is the best.

Love,

Élder Stark ??

P.S. Go to Instagram and follow @mormonfaces. I’ll be making an appearance there sometime within the near future.