The work is moving forward!

Thank you for your emails this week. They were very uplifting and inspiring. Dad, thank you for sharing your final talk and testimony as Bishop. You were a great Bishop and I am also thankful for the service you provided to me during those 8 years as my bishop. I wish you all the best with your new calling. Mom, I enjoy reading your spiritual thoughts every week. They are great.

The pain in my mouth has gotten considerably less this week. It is bearable when I brush my teeth and it does not hurt during the day any longer. I am thankful for your prayers and for the power of prayer in general. I know that prayers are heard and answered. I am grateful for my Savior that makes that possible.

I finished reading the Book of Mormon last week and I am starting over again putting my focus on the atonement. I have learned so much from reading the Book of Mormon and I am grateful for the guidance it provides in life and for the truths that it teaches. I know that the Book of Mormon is true and that it brings us closer to God and His Son Jesus Christ that any other book. In my studies I learned that the Book of Mormon is the most powerful resource for conversion, and that missionaries or anyone teaching the Gospel should "persuade people to read and pray" about the Book of Mormon, so that they can gain a testimony of its truthfulness for themselves. Once they gain that testimony they will want to read the Book of Mormon again and again. I do not know how family scripture study is going at home, but I hope you do it often. I honestly believe that the Book of Mormon has the answers to all of the questions of the soul.

The week in general was quite successful. We were able to find 11 new investigators and teach 26 lessons. We also found one young woman that is really motivated and she wants to learn. We gave her a Book of Mormon and she was reading 3 Nephi 11 before we had even left the house. When we came back on Sunday she had read it twice and started reading a different chapter. We hope this excitement will continue and that she will accept the gospel of Jesus Christ in her life.

The work is moving forward! It is great to see how people change their lives. It is great to see how the spirit enters their lives as they make and keep commitments and strive to make covenants with our Heavenly Father. That's what it is all about. It is about making covenants with God that help us apply the Atonement in our lives. Everything we do in the church, every covenant we make, every scripture we read points to the atonement. I realized this and the importance of it when Sister Ritfeld shared her amazing testimony yesterday.

That's about all from me for this week. Thanks again for your prayers and support. I love you.

Jeff