{Letter #24} Press Forward {in the cold}!

Alright everyone! This has been quite an eventful and good week! It's been a little bit chilly this week to be on bike, but the Lord has been providing ways for us to stay warm thankfully!

Some highlights from this week: we had Stake Conference, new bike, emergency preparedness, Safeway, and lastly Nathena's baptism!

That list was very out of order^, but the first thing that happened was me getting a new bike. In addition to not shifting gears, the rear axle on my original bike also broke at some point on Wednesday. So Thursday morning I went to the mission office and got a new bike! It is fully functioning now, so getting around has definitely been a bit easier!

At the end of the day Thursday we finished up the day really close to a Safeway in our area, so we decided to go in to grab a scrub brush for our apartment. While we were in there we ran into a recent convert named Danny in the ward and we were able to talk for a little bit an set up a lesson with him! Super random, but good timing! We also bought 2 dozen cupcakes from the bakery, and Elder Goff biked around 6 miles back to our apartment while holding them.

On Friday, my front tire kinda exploded and got slime all over the place with a hole about the size of a nickel. We tried to patch the tire because we didn't have a spare, but that didn't work unfortunately. We had recently been checking out the emergency situations bike repair manual in our apartment though, and it suggested that you can tie your tube in a knot to plug a hole, so we tried it out.

It has now been functioning without any further issues for 4 days. Just a fun tip for the future if you ever get a flat tire.

Saturday and Sunday was Stake Conference! All those sessions were absolutely amazing! The stake leadership, and President and Sister Haymond all gave a lot of amazing talks about Covenants and how you can increase your faith and learn from others. It was an amazing Stake conference!

On Sunday immediately after stake conference was Nathena's baptism! She was someone being taught by other Elders in our zone, but they asked us to give the intermediate talk! It was actually such an amazing baptism! Almost all of the mission leadership was there, President and Sister Haymond, the APs, our ZLs, and all the office Elders. So that was kinda cool to have that many people there to support Nathena in taking that first step towards God. All in all, an amazing baptism, and the intermission talk on the Doctrine of Christ went really well!

All throughout the week God has been placing His children in our path hat are prepared to receive the gospel. It is absolutely amazing! We have been biking around in the high 20s most evenings, but people keep letting us in and are showing genuine interest in progressing and learning more about Christ. It is amazing! We have been staying mostly warm, and teaching far more people than before!

My spiritual thought this week will come from Stake Conference. In one of President George's (the stake president) addresses he was talking about vertical covenants and horizontal covenants. Vertical covenants are the covenants that we make and keep with God. Horizontal covenants are the covenants that we make to help support others in keeping their covenants. An example of this that came to mind is contained in Mosiah 18:8-10 in which the prophet Alma {from the Book of Mormon} teaches:

"Behold, here are the waters of Mormon (for thus were they called) and now, as ye are desirous to come into the fold of God, and to be called his people, and are willing to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light; Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death, that ye may be redeemed of God, and be numbered with those of the first resurrection, that ye may have eternal life—"

These first couple verses are an example of the horizontal covenant!

Alma goes on to describe the vertical covenant that we make at baptism and says:

"Now I say unto you, if this be the desire of your hearts, what have you against being baptized in the name of the Lord, as a witness before him that ye have entered into a covenant with him, that ye will serve him and keep his commandments, that he may pour out his Spirit more abundantly upon you?"

I love this idea. When we make covenants with God, we also covenant that we will lift and support others in their efforts of keeping the covenants that the have made. When we have made covenants with God we have a responsibility to keep those covenants, and to help EVERYONE be covenant keepers! My invitation for everyone this week is to study King Benjamin's address contained in Mosiah 2-5 and look for these covenants that we have made to God and to all people around us! I'd love to hear some of your insights