The Plan of Salvation

I don't think there has been a single normal week here in the "Burg" (that's what we nicknamed the Schaumburg area).

This week was awesome though! We had dinner with a member this week from India and she made us some authentic Indian food. It was so good! We also were able to teach an Indian couple and we're hoping to commit her to be baptized on Christmas eve.

Something invaluable I learned this week: if you try to make a goose flinch, and it doesn't, you'd better run as fast as you can in the other direction because that goose is now mad and is going to kill you. I don't need to tell you how I gained this knowledge but just so you know, geese are mean!

I also have a companion, Elder Boetcher, who reminds me so much of my brother Noah, it's not even funny. He always says things that are so funny and yet so politically incorrect and inappropriate for the moment. He kills me!

Now, onto some serious stuff. It was actually kind of cool this week, with regards to our lessons, because we ended up teaching the Plan of Salvation everytime, even to investigators who were new or who had already heard it before. It's like everybody needed that message this week, and then I realized that I was the one who needed to hear it!   I knew the plan of Salvation before and I knew what it taught, where we were before this life and where we are going after but I guess I never got to that core question which is, why are we here. I knew the Sunday school answers but it had never been explained to me simply enough for me to truly grasp it. And that is, the whole purpose of this life is to change from our "natural man" personality to be more like God. And every choice we make either makes us more like God or makes us less like God. The craziest part is that those few choices we make here affect how we'll live for eternity!

It's always so cool to realize these things for myself and then to be able to teach them more simply and powerfully. I have a testimony of the refiners fire, that God makes us who he wants us to be if we ask him to. It hurts. It hurts a lot, but it is so worth it in the end!

I love and pray for you all and wish you my best!

Love,

Elder Arkoudas 

To the Boys.....

This email is for the boys.

Advice from a missionary.

-If God want something from you, you'd better give it to him. If not, he'll take it and I promise it will hurt 10 times worse.

-If you try to make a goose flinch and it doesn't, you'd better high tail it in the other direction because it's now mad and it will kill you.

-In the bathroom, wipe twice with toilet paper and once with a wet wipe.

-Speaking of the bathroom, don't ever mix spicy food with milkshakes...enough said.

More next week...

 Halloween night we stayed in starting at 5pm for liability reasons. So we popped a huge bag of popcorn and watched "The Testament".

Back seat life

Elder Boetcher eating a bowl full of jelly beans and milk.