Letter #53

 For my personal studies, I have been reading through the Book of Mormon and highlighting all the tender mercies of the Lord that I see and right now I am in 3 Nephi when the ressurected Christ visits the people in the America's. In chapter 13, He is giving His Sermon on the Mount discourse to these people, similar to his Sermon that He gave in Matthew 5-7. The verses that stood out to me were verses 31 through 33, where Christ says:

    "Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? 

    For your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. 

    But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you."

The Lord is asking for all of our effort in doing His work and He promises that our needs will be met. He sees your effort, He knows exactly what you need, and He will provide everything according to His matchless knowledge and love. So don't worry about it, He's got ya! Focus on what He's given you do do. My companion and I have seen tons of miracles these past few weeks as we've made that our focus. 

We are currently teaching 17 people, it was so cool to see how the Lord put them in our path. One of these people is a boy named Dante. For the few days before we picked him up to begin teaching, my companion and I had strong feelings telling us to go to this certain neighborhood in our area. It's kinda far out and we had to watch the miles we were using pretty closely to make sure we didn't go over our allotment, but we kept going back and eventually we found Dante. He'd been taught in the past but due to some mental challenges he decided it was too overwhelming for him. By the time we stopped by though and after we had a powerful conversation about Christ and baptism Dante felt ready again to work towards baptism. My companion and I had been praying hard for us to be put in someone's path and we could see clearly that he had prepared someone for us to meet, we just had to show Him that we were giving all our effort and trust into His care. 

Another other cool thing from this past week was General Conference! To hear the Prophet, the 12 Apostles, and other general authorities speak was so refreshing, I can't tell you how hype I get while watching Conference. If you want to see what I'm talking about you can either look up 2024 general conference up on YouTube or go to churchofjesuschrist.org and watch some of the sessions there. My favorite talk was by Elder Kearon, the new Apostle. 

One of my favorite quotes from him was: "God is in relentless pursuit of you. He wants all of His Children to choose to return to Him and He employs every possible measure to bring you back" 

God is not sitting back as some nonchalant spectator nor is he casual in His efforts. He is fully in the game, working at max capacity with all the divine power under heaven directed towards you. Are we relentless in our efforts to come back to Him? 

I know God lives and is actively engaged in our lives today. I know He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to live, die, and live again so we can do the same. Wherever you are at or however you feel, you are not exempt from His love and tender care. Believe it! Pray about it! God is waiting for you!