April 6, 2015 - Easter Sunday

Happy Easter everyone!  Hope you had a great Easter with eggs and what not. First of all, I would like to start with my testimony of President Thomas S. Monson.  I know that he is a true prophet.  He lives and guides and spends his entire life to serve us, so that we can find happiness and truth in our lives.  It is his utter joy to bring people to the truth.  It saddens him each time a marriage is broken, or one does not believe in the church. He is a man, and as a man, has faults and weaknesses.  But God makes him to be one of the greatest that a man can be.  I appreciate all he does, and it grieves me to hear of our beloved brothers falling away and losing that truth and happiness that we know to cherish. Continue to love them, do not hate them for criticism is not the way to correction. Love is that way. 

But this brings us to a thought that I would like to share to all those who do raise their hands to support our prophet, seer, and revelator, Thomas S. Monson.  What are YOU doing to support him and sustain him?  Times grow ever nearer that the opposition and persecution of the church will grow stronger, and we cannot stand on the fence any longer.  We must make the ground to choose to follow or to not.  Remember and review the words of the prophet, and make choices and goals of what you will do to better sustain our prophet.  Renew your testimony by not just remembering the day you were baptized and how good you felt, but renew it by serving others and making spiritual experiences day by day.  Only then will you have sustained the prophet, and thus will not falter in your faith also. Satan doth ever desire you, for you can be used for evil if we are not careful, because he knows of our potential for good. 

D&C 123:

13. Therefore, that we should waste and wear out our lives in bringing to light all the hidden things of darkness, wherein we know them; and they are truly manifest from heaven—
14. These should then be attended to with great earnestness.
15. Let no man count them as small things; for there is much which lieth in futurity, pertaining to the saints, which depends upon these things.
16. You know, brethren, that a very large ship is benefited very much by a very small helm in the time of a storm, by being kept workways with the wind and the waves.
17. Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed.

Did you know that this Easter also coincides with the week of Hari Hantu (Ghost Day) apparently the Buddhists burn things for their dead ancestors, and in Malaysia they have paper smart phones, paper wallets, paper watches, literally anything to burn for your ancestors! It's an interesting holiday... Little bit out of the ordinary, but interesting.

This week we didn't have general conference but next week lah! We had a fantastic week, even though all of our investigators went back to their hometown for the weekend. Didn't know Easter was so big here, wow.  Easter we had a couple big celebrations. One was our district 1st counselors's daughter's 2nd birthday. We had a huge party for them.  We taught Elyjah this week and shared some scriptures to help him get through some big trials he is having right now. The other recent convert, Steven, came back Friday from work so he should be getting the priesthood soon. :) 

Other than that we have gotten some strange people to try working with, including an exorcist. That should be interesting trying to teach him about the priesthood later. :) 

uhmmm uhmm... I can't think of anything else that happened... oh I went on exchanges with Elder Thatcher and we ended up getting lost trying to find a less active, meanwhile my companion was with Elder Hobbs and my comp was sick, so I got the better end of the deal. Haha. 

This week I also got a strange text from the Chinese sisters and asked me how to say "Where are you going?" in Czech, and I told them, then they asked me how to say "We are missionaries from a christian church" in Czech... and then later that day I asked them what that was all about and they said they met this Czech family on the bus that didn't speak any English, and they wanted to help them get to where they wanted to go, but they asked me how to say those things.  I tried telling them how to pronounce Czech, but it didn't work out. Strange since they have to learn a hard-pronunciation language, MANDARIN. :P

Dobry den! 

Elder Vincent