Arizona Week 94 - Spoken by the Spirit

Hello Everyone,

This week went very well. A lot of less active members came to church again. Many of them have been coming for several consecutive weeks now. It's nice to see them returning.

We helped with the garden again this week. Our assignment was to fill in some holes with dirt. We loaded up the wheelbarrow full of dirt but when we went to lift it, the handle snapped off and dirt spilled everywhere. We decided to make smaller loads after that. It was a little embarrassing, but we got over it.

We had another lesson with Laurie this week. We decided to talk about Baptism and the Gift of the Holy Ghost. I really enjoy teaching her. She is able to make connections between what we teach her and what she has been raised knowing in the Catholic Church.

As we talked about baptism and a little about the sacrament she would say things such as, "I have never thought of baptism like that. It's much more of a commitment than I ever realized." She said similar things about the sacrament and about not realizing what it meant.

I've heard it said that you can know when the Spirit speaks through you because you will learn something. I always feel like I learn something when I teach her. For this week, I gained a greater appreciation for the sacrament.

We explained to her that someone can take the sacrament as an outward expression but not understand the commitment involved or not be willing to accept that commitment. I realized that then that the Lord, of course, knows our hearts and that when I stand before Him I want to be able to say that I took the sacrament with a sincere heart every week.

I can only imagine the feeling that would come from realizing that I was not sincere and that I was only doing it as, essentially, a show. It means much more than that and we should treat it thus.

At the end of our lesson, we invited her to be baptized by someone holding the priesthood authority, to make that commitment and to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. Although she decided to not commit to this at this time, she expressed that we had given her a lot to think about and that had given her the best lesson she had ever received. We look forward to meeting with her again this week.

I hope you all will have a great week.

Elder Kirk

Added by Elder Kirk's Mom:
I received a text during the week that included pictures of Elder Kirk and his companion and some KFC.




























He looks happy and healthy...what more could a mom ask for? :-D