We Will Live Again

Wow. I had a lot of emails to read today. I seemed to read slower than usual too.

I've left my self pretty much no time to write an email. So I apologize for the shortness of this email.

Yesterday I had the privilege of bearing my testimony 2 times. It seems like recently there has been a lot of death and other tragedies going around. So I talked about that in my testimony.

 

My last companion, Elder Manning, has been going through a rough time. His dad has cancer. He was notified of that about a month ago. It was a shock to him and he has been trying to deal with that. It was worse than the family thought and he had to start Chemo. Elder Manning told me that last week through email. I called President because I was worried about Elder Manning. Then we had ZLC on Friday and President kinda addressed that topic in the meeting. He tried to teach us that there are warm and cuddly doctrines and there are wintery doctrines. Trials aren't fun but they are there for a purpose. And then of course with all the news about Cherie I shared a little of my feelings there. Also, recently some of my dad's friends have seen similar trials in their lives.

But with all this sad and suffering I am still very peaceful. It seems like over the past few weeks my testimony has been strengthened in the Plan of Salvation and in Eternal Families. Even last night, we got to teach someone who didn't want to believe in an afterlife. I don't think we were able to help her very much... But in having the opportunity to teach about the Plan of Salvation, I was given added strength to my testimony.

This life is not it. We will live again. Perfection does not come in this life, but it can in the next. All that is unfair about life is made fair through the atonement. But a lot of that doesn't come until after we die. Death is a necessary step in being transformed from mortality to immortality. It is a blessing to know that going through death isn't the end. That's what I bore my testimony on.

On a different note. The Zone did really well this week! We have a zone goal of getting 12 new investigators a week. Which I though was a high but achievable goal. The record in Hermiston zone for the recent past is 16 new investigators in one week. This week we got 35! And one day we got 13!!! It was the day where Elder Butler and I were in Tri-cities for ZLC so we weren't even there to help. It was amazing to see. We crushed the old record. I was very very proud of our zone for doing that. We also got more OYM's in the zone than ever before. We saw some amazing things. It should turn into baptisms pretty soon. We can only hope.

Elder Butler and I are getting along great and I love being able to live with Elder Babbitt and Elder Nance too. It's fun to have four of us in one place because we get to come home and hear about the miracles that they saw that day too.

Well. Short. But I have to go.

I love you all.

 

Hopefully I will get to report a successful baptism next Monday for Lilly Harmon.

Love,

Elder Paxman