Magnificently articulating......moral of the story- Brother Bishop is great and Joseph Smith is greater!!!

I'm trying to magnificently articulate a well typed email all the while emailing pictures to myself from my ipad to send to y'all AND do key indicators and baptismal dates for our zone. :)

Thank you for sharing that about Bishop Bishop! The new institute directors name here in Bozeman is Patrick Bishop. 

Cool story: I was in a lesson with Brother Bishop the new institute director and we were teaching an investigator. The investigator was picking at every little thing that we taught him. He eventually got to this point where he said, "It's just hard for me to swallow. The Bible is all about faith, faith and faith. After a time Joseph Smith comes along and starts preachin' works, works, and works. Looks at what it's done. It's just not right and I just don't agree with it." Brother Bishop looks at us and says, "May I?". Brother Bishop pipes up and says, "I'm not sure if I know where you are coming from. There are very few people in this world that have studied the life of Joseph Smith more extensively and for a longer period of time than I. I spent just the last 30 years studying his life. I helped write and publish the Joseph Smith Papers, I read manuscripts that he himself wrote as a prophet, and what you just said is furthest from the truth. Joseph Smith never preached works, in fact there is not one person who has testified of our Savior more than Joseph did at that time in history." He didn't say a word and just moved on to another thing that he had a problem with. So moral of the story, Brother Bishop is great, and Joseph Smith is even greater!

Jacob is right.... Joseph Smith was a great man. I admire him for so many reasons. He was courageous and he was obedient and he believed in God.  In James 1:5 Joseph read, "if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God." At a time when there were so many religious revivals and it was hard to know which church was true- he simply asked. I will always be grateful for that. My life has 
been incredibly blessed by the gospel of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I know that my Savior 
loves me and I know that He gave his life for me. I firmly believe that God still loves us and cares 
about us and He leads and guides us through a prophet on the earth. I knows the Holy Ghost leads me and guides me as well- I am truly blessed. 

http://www.mormon.org/beliefs/joseph-smith?CID=33401010&s_kwcid=TC%7C1028504%7Cjoseph%20smith%20%20mormon%7C%7Bplacement%7D%7CS%7Cb%7C%7Bcreative%7D&

https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/js?lang=eng

Oh mom I can't wait to hug you. I love you

Oh mom.

I can't wait to give you a big hug. I love you.

I think that it's so great that with y'all havin' sammy that you're getting more and more missioanry opportunities! I will keep praying that you have them. I laughed at the story where she got out of her cage. Was she doing anything that she wasn't supposed to do? 

Our investigator didn't get baptized this week but we have faith that he will receive his answer that the church is true and follow the example of our Savior into the baptismal waters this next month. He is awesome! He's great. Jorvik would like him too. He was a marathon runner before he came to msu. He has ran like 5 marathons and he said he took 8th place in the Ogden marathon, he's qualified for boston several times and his best marathon he averaged like 6.5 minute miles for the whole thing-26.2 miles. It's crazy. He's awesome though.

I got a letter from the Hills this week so that was good (they sent a simple card and it was a nice reminder that people love me. Thank you Hills!!!!) I will probably write them a simple letter back.

Our zone is doing good. Our ward is doing even better. I don't know how but they are. Ducks just keep falling in place and the more we work the more I look back and realize we have been led by 

the spirit as we have managed this zone and our area.

sweet realizations.

So this email made me feel really good. I can't wait to hug him too- it will be a glorious day!  Enjoy these photos Jake shared-

OH MY GOODNESS!!!! Mission Tour, Family History and Bush's Baked Bean ~ Heck Yeah!

OH MY GOODNESS!!!

Mission Tour with Elder Carlos A. Godoy, Mission Leadership Council, Ate Bush's Baked Beans for dinner on Sunday, and someone who believes Christ is an Alien. That's my week in a nutshell..

Mission Tour was phenomenal. Elder Godoy made it very clear again that our mission is #1 out of the 22 missions in our area. He said that if this mission can't baptize thousands then none of them can. We need 84 a month for 12 months to get 1008. Our mission is striving to live a higher law of obedience and the things that we consider an obedience problem, most missions would probably not.  Like, "Don't say p-day say preparation day." I think that kind of obedience is ultimately why our mission is doing so well. We are the same as the other missions in the sense that we all deal with obedience matters but ours are minute to the things the other missions have to deal with. 

Mission Leadership Council is great! I am thankful that I know about Family History. We broke up into a few groups to talk about some things our mission wants to implement or get better at. I was one of the few people in the Council that knew anything about how to use and work Family Search and Ancestry.com. It was great! It will be something that we use a lot more in our missionary work. Our zone conference in July will be dedicated to it.

Bush's baked beans for dinner-Heck yeah! Hahaha University ward problems. I love it (: We have a full week of dinners this week though so we're excited. One of them is with a less active member and her non member roommate. 

Found a lot of potentials this week. One of our investigators needs your prayers. She knows she needs to be baptized but she text us last night and said she doesn't want lessons or to go to church because she wants to sleep in on Sundays.  We asked her if she had prayed about what to do and she said that God told her AGAIN that she needs to be baptized this month but she doesn't want to. 

there's an update! 

Here are a few pictures of Jake from his Mother's Day Skype call - Enjoy!  (I sure do miss him!!!!)