Familia!
It was so great to see you all! If I'm not wrong I believe that there were 22 of us on the Christmas call...crazy stuff. Our family is HUGE! Its going to be awesome when we all move down here to Arizona in the next couple of years.... :)
This week has been awesome.Its been a huge blessing serving in Tempe twice on my mission. Some days we will just be driving down random streets and I will have flash backs to last year at this time when I was serving here. I honestly love this place. There truly are no weirder people in the world haha. Sometimes you just have to laugh at the things that you see here in Tempe.
We've been working on a couple projects for our online proselyting. Especially working in the University wards it has been a huge blessing to stay in touch with our investigators over the Christmas break. I think one of the hardest/most beneficial things that I have seen throughout my mission is becoming one with the members. As you truly invest into the members, not only do you have the chance to help them, but you have the chance to help all of those around them.
Especially with just barely switching wards again plus Christmas break it has been pretty difficult to get to know the members very well, but Elder Oscarson and I had some sweet ideas on how they good get to know us. This week we should have some videos coming out on facebook, kinda like Mormon.org profiles, but better of course. Well, hopefully. We'll see how they turn out but I'm pretty excited for them.
We had some awesome lessons with our investigators this week. Last week we started teaching an investigator named Jasmine. She is a super devout Christian and it has been awesome as we have both taught and learned from her. I honestly don't think I have ever taught anyone like her. She questions everything! Which is good, but it has made for some interesting lessons. This last week she committed herself to read the entire Book of Mormon by the end of winter break and she is already a good portion through it. Yesterday was her first time coming to church, and after we met for a little bit to have a lesson. After the lesson she told us that she felt like she was having a change of heart, she never before thought that she would ever become a member of the church, but now it has become a serious thought.
The power of the Book of Mormon never ceases to amaze me. From such a short book, we can find the answer to every questions we face in life, we can receive guidance and direction, our hearts can be softened, and we can grow closer to our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. I have such a testimony of it and its truthfulness. Yesterday we had every missionary's worst nightmare for Gospel Principles. Lesson 47: Exaltation. Even better, the wards were combined, and the teacher this week was the one who taught the Spirit World a few weeks ago, and began the Gospel Principles class singing, If You Could Hie to Kolob. Knowing that we had a couple investigators in class Elder Oscarson and I looked at each other and both offered a silent prayer. Turns out the lesson was much better than expected.
At first it was a little rough, everyone was throwing around questions left and right and people were putting in what "they thought" was true, you know just the usual, and then our Recent Convert Gabe raised his hand. We weren't sure what Gabe was going to do, but then he just started teaching with such simplicity and power that all the questions stopped. He talked about what our Heavenly Father's plan meant for him, testified of what he knew to be true, and the spirit flooded the room.
I find that sometimes we like to make things more difficult than they need to be, when in fact the Gospel is simple. Its true, in this life we do not know everything, but we can know many things. True testimony is built off of a foundation of simple truths, which over time grows to be something magnificent. I find that when things get confusing or we just don't know the answers to everything, the most important thing we can do is turn to those simple truths that we do know. I'm thankful for Gabe and the example that he is to me. It truly is such a blessing to be able to serve around such amazing people. I hope you're all doing well! I love you all!
Con Amor,
Elder Jurgensmeier
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