Monday, April 13, 2015

"dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power"

Dearly beloved family,

Here are some great things that happened this week:

On Wednesday we helped with an annual international bike race. We were "Race Marshals" and stood at a street corner to mostly make sure traffic didn't get in the way of the race. It was fun, and when we didn't have people to talk with or traffic to direct or racers going by, we read the Book of Mormon.

Also on Wednesday while driving between planned activities, we saw a small family loading something big onto the bed of a truck. Led by the Spirit, we pulled over, not knowing beforehand what we should do or say. Sadly, they were done with the load. But we made good conversation with the mother of the family. We soon learned that they used to attend a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in San Bernardino for a little while. But they just moved to another part of town. They happily accepted the invitation for missionaries to come to their new home to teach them the restored gospel. They even had friends and family that they wanted missionaries to visit. The whole experience was invigorating. And as we drove to our next plans, we remembered how we had specifically prayed that morning that we would have the spiritual sensitivity to recognize the subtle promptings of the Spirit and have the faith to do whatever it led us to do.

Also on Wednesday, we were asked to give our neighbor a priesthood blessing. She is a sweet woman that we see daily and she gives us treats from time to time. She makes GREAT guacamole. She is not a member of the church, but the sisters teach her. She has been mysteriously sick for the last several weeks, and she didn't know what else to do. So, as James suggests, she called for the elders. It was a sweet experience, and afterward, we asked her how she felt. She told us:

When you put the [consecrated] oil on my head, I had a warm feeling go through my whole body--and not just on my head. 

The priesthood of God has been restored to the earth!

Yesterday, we had another great lesson with the Lee family. We read the Book of Mormon with them. They were at 1 Nephi 4. Sister Lee was not raised with the restored gospel, but Brother Lee was. So when Sister Lee had questions, Brother Lee would explain the whole story in his own words. I loved it. I could feel Heavenly Father's infinite love for them. The Book of Mormon is so good for us!

I love you all,

Elder Judd


Me, Elder Raff, Elder Van Dyke, Elder Teichert







There was so much fog on the drive up and down

Our hike last Preparation day



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