Plan of Salvation

Friends and family,

This week was another great one! Elder Yount and I get along great and we have been trying to work our consecrated behinds off! 

This week we had a great lesson with our investigator Bernadita (she made us pupusas from El Salvador--they were so good) and it was such a testimony builder for me of the power of creating an environment where the spirit can teach. As we began to teach her the Plan of Salvation a thought popped into my mind and it struck me so strong that I wrote it down in a journal that I have been keeping of spiritual experiences. This is what I wrote down concerning the Plan of Salvation:

We need to realize that the Plan of Salvation is not like some giant game of Risk somewhere in heaven: we are not little plastic soldiers that the Lord moves around and puts us where He wants us in order to complete His plan. We are the plan! Each one of us has an individual and personal Plan of Salvation and the combination of all of those is the Plan of Salvation. The reason the Lord gave us scripture is not just to learn about the Plan, but to learn and understand what our plan is. They are a guide to help us personally and individually on our journey towards exaltation. We can pray about a decision that we should make and then turn to the scriptures as a guidebook for what the Lord would have us do.

I am so grateful for my plan of salvation and how the Lord has led and guided me and I know that each of us has been led and guided by God. I know that sometimes it seems like a stumbling block or a thorn in our sides, but really it is just another step in our eternal progression.

I love you all and hope that you have a great week this week. We made sure to take lots of pictures!

Elder Arkoudas

Pic. 1: Sahara challenge (turn the heater on full blast for 15 minutes when it is 90 degrees or hotter outside. Was it a good idea? No. Should we have done it? Probably not. Did we do it anyway? Of course!)

Pic. 2: The mish border...

Pic. 3: Slack lining!

Pic. 4: Did sombody say "Sexay"?

Pic. 5: Those were all given to us...in like 2 days. As you can tell we stay very hydrated.

Pic. 6: Saturday night we were riding bikes and it started raining so we rode home 6 miles in the rain (this was like Illinois rain). We just had to take a picture!

Pic. 7: Our investigator who made us pupusas (we also got to make one)

Pic. 8: It was hot and we were tired.