Friday, April 11, 2014

Aren't We Privileged to Be Participants? - Mar. 31,2014

I'll be praying for Ky and fasting for her!

Tell Lydia that I will be super excited to see her and I love her.

And for this week:

We were able to see just so many tender mercies this week especially with a man named Sanya who is was on really hard drugs for about a year and a half. He gave them up two months ago and in order to quit, took up really heavy drinking...and here come the missionaries knocking on his door :) He let us in (and if not for the Spirit giving the okay we would have not gone in...) and we were able to give him a Book of Mormon and set up a return appointment. That was a little over a week ago...and now, he is down to a few grams of alcohol every 24 hours, is reading the Book of Mormon and praying every day. It is incredible to see that only the fullness of the Gospel would have the strength to take him out of the hole he got himself in, even hospitals have rejected him considering him hopeless...and some of the sweetest moments of my mission have been with this man who is trying just so hard to change his life against all odds. Because of the drugs, his brain suffered a lot of damage...but that doesn't stop the Spirit from literally fusing his neurons together and helping him understand fundemental truths that have the power to make him free. Only the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ and through the Book of Mormon has and will have enough strength and power to combat the adversary in these days and in the darker days to come. "Does God love me?" He has asked time and time again. "I'm pretty sure that He hates me for what I've done." And with full heart and testimony of the redeeming love of our Savior eternities echo as we are able to repeat just as often as the question is posed: "Yes Sanya. He loves you so much." As the prophet Isaiah poetically put: "For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still." (Isaiah 9:17). Though we must repent - and often that repentance is painful - I testify that His hands are always stretched out still.

Are we privileged to be participants?

I love you mom!
Have a wonderful week and tell the twins that I love them too!
Elder Claypool

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