Hello all

Hello all

We had a pretty good week this week. Our Monday was normal with the exception that we had to drive 2 hours to Belfast to stay with them for zone conference.

Zone Conference was awesome! President Blair began by talking about how we are the fulfillment of the literal gathering of Israel in these last days. We are doing that great work. That was restored from Moses, the actual Moses, to the Prophet Joseph Smith. We have to have faith that that is true and like it says in James chapter 2, bring that faith to action, because faith without work(s) is dead.
He also talked about how we can't go about doing this our own way. We cannot baptize converts if they have no faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. We know that we invite people to repent and come unto Him. To live the gospel that He has given us. Not ourselves or our works or our character, but His alone.

After zone conference our days were pretty normal.  We met with Branch President Kudrick to see what we could do to help strengthen the branch and get them to be more involved in the missionary work. President Kudrick gave us some advice and two less-actives to focus on and one of them we knew fairly well so I was less than excited at the prospect of the new task given our effectiveness in the past with him. Anyways, we go over to this person's house and asked if he was coming to church on Sunday. He says "sure, I can do that" and I am thinking "yeah we have heard this about a billion times before." but we left with a little hope and followed up on Sunday morning. We walked to his house and woke him up. We left as he got ready for church, shower and stuff. Yaknow. After about 5 minutes of sacrament meeting passed by and no sign of him. I thought "great, we gave him 45 minutes to think of a lame excuse while he was in the shower." well this week he came strolling into the chapel for the first time in almost 20 weeks. It was a really cool experience to see how hard work and prayer can get awesome things done and working with people through the spirit can soften hearts.

The week prior, President Kudrick invited the branch to use this fast Sunday to fast and pray that the Lord would help our little branch to grow. I think it worked because yesterday we had about 57 people in the chapel! just 18 months ago there were times when 20 was high. We had to get more chairs from the relief society room to fit everyone in our small chapel.

I am so grateful for this work despite it's difficulty. I have a testimony that this is the beginning of the literal gathering of Israel. That the keys to do so have been restored to this earth and that the Lord has prepared the hearts of his children for the glad tidings that I have been commissioned to deliver.

I hope that you all have a wonderful week and that you know that I love you.
have a great rest of your labor day.

Until Next week:

-Elder Starr (2)