Dear Family & Friends,
I want to say thank you to everyone who sent me letters during the Christmas season. It helped to bolster my spirit, and lift me up. Now, I know that I haven't sent an email for a long time. For that I am sorry. I am gonna make it up by writing this really long email to fill everybody in on the things that have happened since I last wrote.
We have 6 new people we are teaching, and 2 of them have baptismal dates!
One of the people getting baptized is a little girl from a New-Member family. She is turning 9 in a couple weeks, and she is getting baptized on the 24th. I am super pumped!
We had a fantastic lesson with her on Thursday. At the end, she wanted to read out of the scriptures with us. I had her flip the pages of her Book of Mormon, and I told her to stop randomly. I told her to start reading verse 8. I didn't know what it was, or if there was a verse 8 on that page. It turns out that I had stopped her at Helaman Chapter 5 Verse 8. It was pretty cool. We read up until Verse 12, cuz that is a really important one.
8 And now my sons, behold I have somewhat more to desire of you, which desire is, that ye may not do these things that ye may boast, but that ye may do these things to lay up for yourselves a treasure in heaven, yea, which is eternal, and which fadeth not away; yea, that ye may have that precious gift of eternal life, which we have reason to suppose hath been given to our fathers.
9 O remember, remember, my sons, the words which king Benjamin spake unto his people; yea, remember that there is no other way nor means whereby man can be saved, only through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ, who shall come; yea, remember that he cometh to redeem the world.
10 And remember also the words which Amulek spake unto Zeezrom, in the city of Ammonihah; for he said unto him that the Lord surely should come to redeem his people, but that he should not come to redeem them in their sins, but to redeem them from their sins.
11 And he hath power given unto him from the Father to redeem them from their sins because of repentance; therefore he hath sent his angels to declare the tidings of the conditions of repentance, which bringeth unto the power of the Redeemer, unto the salvation of their souls.
12 And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.
I don't know how to explain it. But the feeling of the spirit that day was remarkable.
Anyways, the other baptism is an older girl in a Part-Member family. She's 14 and has met with the missionaries before. She's set to be baptized next month and I hope that she will be up to the challenge.
In other news, we are getting a new truck. It's going to be a Nissan Frontier. It's coming this Friday, and I am so pumped to get it!
Now, to end with a story...
So, this happened just this last Sunday. We were clear out in the middle of nowhere in a little podunk town called Winona. We were late for our dinner appointment, so I put the address in the GPS and told it to take the shortest route there. It took us down a dirt road that went through Mark Twain National Forest. We followed it for a couple miles and before too long the dirt road became leaves. I thought nothing of it. After all, the GPS wouldn't lie to me. It said there was a path through this forest... Or so I thought...
The path we were on lost its smoothness. We took some sharp turns. I pressed on along the path that the GPS said to follow. After all, it couldn't possibly lead me astray!
The road climbed a hill and then descended into a muddy valley. I pressed forward, bouncing over rocks and small bushes that lay in my path. The GPS wasn't going to lead me astray. If it says there is a road here, there has to be one here! We got through the mud and ended up in a clearing surrounded by trees... and not a single way through them.
I couldn't believe that the GPS was wrong! I was mad and we were going to be late. I had to admit that the GPS had lied to me. My one thing that I relied heavily on, and it lied to me. I felt hurt and betrayed.
After a little bit of cussing the stupid thing out [his cussing currently consists of chipmunk gibberish about pinecones and cranberries], we managed to turn around with the little space we had, and headed back down the path we had forged. But I still had that frustration in my mind.
After we got back to the main road, we put in the same destination in the GPS and instructed it to take the fastest route. I said a prayer that we would arrive quickly and that we wouldn't be misled again. We got there only 10 minutes late, which was amazing since we had been more than 40 miles away.
I look back on this now, and I know that it was a lesson to me. I had relied on the things of man and not enough on my Heaven Father to guide me. If I follow the correct guidance that I receive from the Holy Ghost, I will not be led astray. Man is flawed. Our Father in Heaven is not.
I say these things in the name of our Beloved Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen.
I love you all, and I pray that everybody stays safe during this frigid winter season.
~Elder Hegsted
I want to say thank you to everyone who sent me letters during the Christmas season. It helped to bolster my spirit, and lift me up. Now, I know that I haven't sent an email for a long time. For that I am sorry. I am gonna make it up by writing this really long email to fill everybody in on the things that have happened since I last wrote.
We have 6 new people we are teaching, and 2 of them have baptismal dates!
One of the people getting baptized is a little girl from a New-Member family. She is turning 9 in a couple weeks, and she is getting baptized on the 24th. I am super pumped!
We had a fantastic lesson with her on Thursday. At the end, she wanted to read out of the scriptures with us. I had her flip the pages of her Book of Mormon, and I told her to stop randomly. I told her to start reading verse 8. I didn't know what it was, or if there was a verse 8 on that page. It turns out that I had stopped her at Helaman Chapter 5 Verse 8. It was pretty cool. We read up until Verse 12, cuz that is a really important one.
8 And now my sons, behold I have somewhat more to desire of you, which desire is, that ye may not do these things that ye may boast, but that ye may do these things to lay up for yourselves a treasure in heaven, yea, which is eternal, and which fadeth not away; yea, that ye may have that precious gift of eternal life, which we have reason to suppose hath been given to our fathers.
9 O remember, remember, my sons, the words which king Benjamin spake unto his people; yea, remember that there is no other way nor means whereby man can be saved, only through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ, who shall come; yea, remember that he cometh to redeem the world.
10 And remember also the words which Amulek spake unto Zeezrom, in the city of Ammonihah; for he said unto him that the Lord surely should come to redeem his people, but that he should not come to redeem them in their sins, but to redeem them from their sins.
11 And he hath power given unto him from the Father to redeem them from their sins because of repentance; therefore he hath sent his angels to declare the tidings of the conditions of repentance, which bringeth unto the power of the Redeemer, unto the salvation of their souls.
12 And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.
I don't know how to explain it. But the feeling of the spirit that day was remarkable.
Anyways, the other baptism is an older girl in a Part-Member family. She's 14 and has met with the missionaries before. She's set to be baptized next month and I hope that she will be up to the challenge.
In other news, we are getting a new truck. It's going to be a Nissan Frontier. It's coming this Friday, and I am so pumped to get it!
Now, to end with a story...
So, this happened just this last Sunday. We were clear out in the middle of nowhere in a little podunk town called Winona. We were late for our dinner appointment, so I put the address in the GPS and told it to take the shortest route there. It took us down a dirt road that went through Mark Twain National Forest. We followed it for a couple miles and before too long the dirt road became leaves. I thought nothing of it. After all, the GPS wouldn't lie to me. It said there was a path through this forest... Or so I thought...
The path we were on lost its smoothness. We took some sharp turns. I pressed on along the path that the GPS said to follow. After all, it couldn't possibly lead me astray!
The road climbed a hill and then descended into a muddy valley. I pressed forward, bouncing over rocks and small bushes that lay in my path. The GPS wasn't going to lead me astray. If it says there is a road here, there has to be one here! We got through the mud and ended up in a clearing surrounded by trees... and not a single way through them.
I couldn't believe that the GPS was wrong! I was mad and we were going to be late. I had to admit that the GPS had lied to me. My one thing that I relied heavily on, and it lied to me. I felt hurt and betrayed.
After a little bit of cussing the stupid thing out [his cussing currently consists of chipmunk gibberish about pinecones and cranberries], we managed to turn around with the little space we had, and headed back down the path we had forged. But I still had that frustration in my mind.
After we got back to the main road, we put in the same destination in the GPS and instructed it to take the fastest route. I said a prayer that we would arrive quickly and that we wouldn't be misled again. We got there only 10 minutes late, which was amazing since we had been more than 40 miles away.
I look back on this now, and I know that it was a lesson to me. I had relied on the things of man and not enough on my Heaven Father to guide me. If I follow the correct guidance that I receive from the Holy Ghost, I will not be led astray. Man is flawed. Our Father in Heaven is not.
I say these things in the name of our Beloved Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen.
I love you all, and I pray that everybody stays safe during this frigid winter season.
~Elder Hegsted