It's cool to see the mighty change of heart that the Gospel produces in people.
Brother and Sister Linder have really been an example as they share testimony {WITH EVERYONE} of daily couple prayer and scripture study. They both get home from work and during the rest of their time before they go to bed read Doctrine and Covenants or the Book of Mormon out loud to each other. They can't wait to know everything written there. It is really cute!
There were some hard things for them this week. Their teenage son's girlfriend died in an unexpected tragedy this week. Their son lives at home and they were involved in her life a lot. As we came to see them, Brother Linder said, "That is why it is important to have the Gospel in your life. Without Christ, nothing else matters." Within ten minutes of our arriving, the Elders also showed up! The Linder's son so far hasn't been responsive to the lessons. But the Elders were really able to reach out to him when he needed it most. He seemed to go through the rest of his week with a burden lifted.
We can already see Charlie undergoing this same change of heart. He hadn't been reading the Book of Mormon from the beginning, only looking at it doctrinally. We knew he would gain the strongest testimony when he perused it on his own to answer his questions rather than reading what we gave him like homework. He'd gotten pretty far, and this week we told him we'd like to give him a challenge to read the Book of Mormon everyday, and told him we'd match his commitment. "How about an hour?" he asked us. "Is that realistic? If reading a chapter or a verse will be easier for you to keep up with consistently, we'll do that." "No, I think an hour. It's worth it." He's keeping us on our toes, but he pretty much has all along!
There are so many answers we're so excited for him to find, but the biggest one is not just knowledge, but experience, found even before page 1:
"We invite all men everywhere to read the Book of Mormon, to ponder in their hearts the message it contains, and then to ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ if the book is true. Those who pursue this course and ask in faith will gain a testimony of its truth...that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world, that Joseph Smith is His revelator and prophet in these last days, and that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the Lord’s kingdom."
Love you, but Jesus loves you best!
Sister Pugmire
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