Hey Dad! Thanks for you thoughts. That is awesome you got to spend some time with Elder Perry. He´s really tall isn´t he?
I love Jojutla. It´s actually a really beautiful area. It reminds me a lot of Arizona. There are quite a few citrus trees here, and every once in a while I get a whiff of the orange or lemon blossoms. Every time I smell that smell, I don´t know why but my testimony is reinforced that God lives and loves me. I just have such good memories of being at home. And these memories I´ve recognized are so good and sweet because they were times when my life was magnified by the Spirit of the Lord. I can honestly say that every good and wonderful experience that I´ve had have come because I was close to God. The Spirit truly does ¨quicken the inner man¨.
I love that quote or phrase ¨fear of uncertainty, or of the unknown.¨ I think honestly dad you were inspired in sending those words, that quote to me. I have thought about it, and at the center of all of my problems regarding insecurities, weaknesses, and testimony was this fear of the unknown. I almost start to panic when I can´t find an answer that makes sense. But I´ve thought about it, and really there really are questions that we simply can´t answer, because the answers we simply can´t comprehend. How can the human mind understand how God loves every single person that has lived, is living, and will live? How can we understand how the creation happened? We´ve talked about how at BYU I was struggling to feel that God was even there, and if Joseph Smith was really a prophet. Like Korihor in Alma thirty, ¨I always knew there was a God¨, but I can honestly say I let Satan into my mind and heart, to deceive and blind and lead me around aimlessly. And how did I let him in? It was that fear of the unknown. I questioned my testimony of the gospel, because I heard theories of what other people believed, of what other people thought. There are atheists that say there is no God, there are people that believe that Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon, but who cares? I know what I know because I have felt the love of God. I have felt the power of the Atonement and of this gospel in my life. I know God lives and loves me. I know Joseph Smith was a prophet. I read a talk by Elder Holland and he made the reference that we should not fear. In Moses, it talks about how when Moses feared, that is when he saw the bitterness of Hell. Elder Holland said that when we fear, we too see the bitterness of Hell, and we allow the power of the Devil to overtake. It is a theme in the scriptures that we fear not, only believe. I had the opportunity to bear my testimony to my branch yesterday, and I bore my testimony that God lives, that Jesus is the Christ, that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God without a second thought or backward glance. I just forgot what I already knew, and I let the fear of the unknown overtake and scare me. I think that´s the problem with some of these atheists, is they have to have an answer for everything. Everything has to connect and make sense in the head. But when we come to God humbly seeking for light and knowledge, everything makes sense, but in a different way. It makes sense in a ¨divine¨ sort of way, in the heart. Hay que buscar con el corazon. I was thinking about faith, and how it´s believing without seeing. And you can tell an atheist that God exists, but the only way they´re going to know that God exists is if they first believe. I was thinking it´s sort of like the air. We can´t see it. But we see birds utilizing the air to reach higher than if they didn´t use the air. If we didn´t believe that air has the power to make us fly, if we never tried to experiment with airplanes and all of that, we would never have found out that we really can fly, just like the birds. If we don´t believe in the power of God, we will never be able to use his help to reach the heights that we want to reach . The air is invisible, and so is God, but both have the power to lift us higher.
I was reading in the book of Mormon when it talks about how the bible and the book of Mormon would combine and go forth among the seed of Lehi to confound false doctrine. It´s very true here. People here are so proud of their traditions here. Even a lot of members and missionaries just don´t understand. The people here don´t have the priesthood authority to give them the gift of the Holy Ghost. But when you see how the gospel, and how the Holy Ghost works on people to make them better and pure, truly the Book of Mormon is here to lay the smack down on all of this false doctrine. We truly are the covenant people of the Lord. No other church has the system of covenants that we do. Baptism is just to get clean, and the sacrament is for who knows what in other churches. Joseph Smith restored the power of the covenant. I was thinking about child baptism. It is an ancient false doctrine, according to the book of Mormon. Enoch in moses talks thousands of years ago about how children are clean through the atonement. It must be very important to the Lord that we know that Children are innocent, and he has made it known throughout history that they are our examples. Baptism too is an ancient practice. It never hit me before that the principles of the gospel, faith, repentance, baptism, the reception of the Holy Ghost, and persevering to the end have existed since Adam. And it is amazing to know that we have the same gospel that Adam had. The same gospel that was established by the savior in every dispensation. We have the gift of the Holy Ghost. No one else has this gift. The gift of the Holy Ghost is what gives the covenant people of the Lord it´s strength, it´s power. And the majority of the church don´t utilize this gift.
Well I´ve gotta go. I hope you have a great time in Argentina! Wow, what a cool trip! Take pictures and all that jazz for me! I love you Dad. Tell mom the same. Russell
Elder West
