Friday, March 11, 2016

The Book of Mormon Changes Lives

(Elder Cummings)
The Pioneer Park East area is taking off again!  We had a great week for finding, for teaching, for people coming to church, and the Spirit is with us!  Elder Ostler and I are doing great work together.

Yesterday I finished reading all the way through the Book of Mormon.  That brought me back to the first time I read it several years ago.  From then I have learned and progressed in my understanding of the gospel, but everything I have learned and can learn is built upon that foundation I gained in my youth.  I am so grateful for parents who taught me to love the scriptures early.

I love seeing the Book of Mormon change the lives of the people we teach.  It is so wonderful to watch as they gain hope and faith as days of diligent reading build upon each other, preparing the individual for baptism.  One of the people we saw this week, Debbie, is a wonderful example of this.  A single mother with a desire to know the truth.  As she has read the introductory pages she has felt the Holy Ghost bear testimony to her heart, and she has listened.

Mai Yang is another wonderful mother who's life has been impacted by the Book of Mormon.  She speaks fluent Hmong, but can only read Thai.  We were able to get her a copy that she could read and she has learned from her study the truth of the divine pattern of prophetic dispensations: that God works through living prophets, through all the generations of man (Amos 3:7).

Several of the other people we teach cannot read, so we read for them, and as they listen they feel the power of the words.  They too come closer to Christ.

I know for myself the truth of the message we missionaries teach.  I know it helps all men and women draw closer to Christ.  I have seen it in my own life, in the lives of my parents and sibling, and in the lives of the Hmong people of Fresno California.  The same blessings are available to all of us!


-Elder Jared Cummings

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