Sanctify Yourself

 Great week y'all. Had a lot of cool experiences these past few days, so listen up.

Met a man named Eric who is absolutely jacked out of his mind. But we had an amazing spirit that led the first lesson, and he really seemed to believe and understand everything we were saying and just nodding his head. Invited him to read the intro to the BoM and asked when we could meet again, and he told us tomorrow. So we came the next day and had another great lesson! Talked a lot about how important family is. And for y'all reading, family is so central to happiness. There is true joy when you and your family are united, which comes through Christ. The gospel and spirit changes us all, and it makes us become better. Within the home, as y'all try to come closer to God, y'all will come closer to each other. Especially getting into a rhythm of family prayer. A family that prays together stays together. Back to the lesson with Eric, he had read the introduction and told us he doesn't have a church he goes to. Also, he's 50 years old, and we were thinking early 30s. The man looks so great. 

We went to a diner for dinner that was monster and horror themed. It was kinda creepy and there were stupid posters of barely covered women, so that drove away the spirit. But a guy actually paid for our meal which was super cool! I didn't even get a good look at him because he left, and we didn't get to say thanks. So I'm looking forward to the day I can, whether it be in this life or the next:)

I Had Zone Conference this week, and that's where the title comes in. This transfer we've been really trying to improve ourselves. As a mission we will all be going to the temple, and the focus for our mission is to sanctify ourselves. To become more pure and clean and transformed. To be prepared spiritually for the temple so that we can access all the blessings God has in store for us. Something that stood out to me was the spirit's role in change. That it's through the spirit that I can become who I want to become! I've seen how I've changed on my mission so far, and I'm so excited to see how I'll continue to change. And it's all through the spirit's help. The more you have the spirit, the more you change. The more you become who God wants you to be. So my invitation is to sanctify yourself for making covenants in the temple and in sacrament meeting. The sacrament is so important because you renew your baptismal covenant and ALL of your covenants! So you have access to all the blessings of all of them, and you truly become worthy of the spirit.

I had two back-to-back exchanges this week as well, which was a party, haha. With Elder Anderson and Elder Nay. It was a great experience, and they both are amazing missionaries. I got to be a part of some Spanish lessons and that was....interesting haha. Cool folk, just couldn't understand them! Then we had a lesson with Elder Nay with our friend Linda which didn't go so hot. She's gotten into a lot of anti, making it difficult to help her find the truth. She just isn't going about it the way that God would want her to, but she has her agency, so there is nothing we can do about it., Except pray! Haha anyway, it is what it is.

We also had a cool lesson with our friend Glenn, and I felt prompted to bring up the quote, "As man is, God was. As God is, man may be." And I brought this up because we were discussing opposition in all things, and our friend has a very interesting view that God is experiencing everything through us right now. That he is the good and the bad in the world. That he is everything and evolving constantly. And I felt prompted to say that quote, to help him understand that God has experienced opposition in all things. We explained that we don't know much, but shared what we did know. We think it went pretty well with him too! Afterward, my companion said he had the same prompting to bring it up, which just shows that it was the Spirit. Anywho, so that was super cool!

One of the biggest highlights of this week though was our lesson with our friend Robert. We had plans to start the Plan of Salvation with him, however, he started talking a lot about baptism. He wanted to know if there were certain requirements that he had to do in order to be baptized. And we responded by saying he doesn't have to read the whole book of Mormon or anything, that in order to be baptized you need to have a testimony of the true church on the Earth, keep the Commandments, and understand the covenants you are making. We asked if that's something he wanted to work toward and he said yes, though he wants to make sure he knows it's true. We didn't want to push and put him on date to satisfy our own desires because he hasn't even come to church yet and needs a stronger foundation before giving him that goal. But it was such an awesome experience for us.

Love y'all so much. Hurrah for Israel!!

Elder Higginson