Temptations

 Hey y'all! This has been a crazy week. Like holy cow.

We had the opportunity to go to a baptism for an 8-year-old in the ward. It was awesome. The spirit was so strong. We came because a member had invited their neighbors to the baptism. They were from the Philippines, and they loved it! The mom was crying and they all felt the Spirit really strong. It was awesome he sang the song I will be what I believe and it went so good. The spirit was just overwhelming and amazing. It was a glorious experience. it was like the spirit was blowing through my veins, infusing my cells with power and with glory. We invited the members to work on inviting that family to learn more and see if they'd be interested.

Our friend Nick Jones is getting more and more prepared to be baptized!! He is elect. He's so ready to make these choices and commitments and follow through with them for the rest of his life. He's an absolute king, and I am so happy to teach someone like him. It was so cool. Cuz some reason it's usually the more, ummm..... interesting people that would like to hear a message. That's just how it is in Texas, haha. But not Nick! He's a stud! We also have a family from Kenya Africa, and the mom is so excited to be baptized. Hopefully it'll be baptized either this month or beginning of next month, we will see. But she's loved the change that she's had in her life and the impact it's having on her family. She brought them all to church! Her youngest is 2 years old and very crazy. My companion didn't see, because he's blind, and her son knocked the sacrament tray out of his hands! It was the water, and it got everywhere, and Lillian was very embarrassed, haha. It all worked out! It was just water, and everyone got the sacrament just fine, haha.

My spiritual thought happened early this week. Missionaries have 30 minutes of personal study on Preparation days. This last preparation day I decided to use that time to write in my journal cuz I was behind. However, this caused me not to read The Book of Mormon. Later that day, we did some stop by and try to find some people, but I never had an opportunity to read any verses from The Book of Mormon. I realized that night that I hadn't read, and I was like oh, I have to get to that! But of course, it slipped in my mind once more. The following morning I was going about my day and suddenly I felt bombarded with doubts. Doubts about my testimony, if I was able to recognize the spirit, if I had ever felt the spirit, and all sorts of other doubts and fears. And I was like, what the heck is happening? Where are these coming from? I have not had this problem my whole mission! I know what the spirit is! I know I've felt it! Why am I doubting that now? And suddenly I realized that I had not read my Book of Mormon yesterday. And as a district, we were studying a talk called There is power in this book. In it, the man quoted President Benson. He taught: “There is a power in the book which will begin to flow into your lives the moment you begin a serious study of the book. You will find greater power to resist temptation. You will find the power to avoid deception. You will find the power to stay on the strait and narrow path.” and I realized that this was true! That God's promise was real. Truly real. And the temptations it was talking about weren't the temptations I always expected them to be. I thought they would be like being tempted to lie, or being impatient. And I never considered that the temptations and deceptions could be doubts and fierce about my own testimony. Not about what I've built my Foundation on. So now my testimony of the scriptures is so much more powerful than it was before. Because I know there's temptations and deceptions are real! And I know how to avoid them. It Is by reading the scriptures. So y'all, do not ever ever ever forget to read the Book of Mormon every single flipping day. Love you! HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!!

Oh also, as a district we went up to the tower of the Americas. it's like a space needle for San Antonio, and it was super fun! A storm came halfway through our visit, and it was like crazy, haha.

Elder Higginson