Note from Mom- Eric began writing this letter two Thursdays ago on a pday. He didn't finish it and just sent it last p-day, so the news is a little old. It will be interesting to hear from him this coming Thursday since his companion, who is going to Montreal, Canada, is leaving tomorrow.
August 5, 2010
Hi family and Friends!
Hi family and Friends!
It is p-day again. Time is flying by so fast. The days do seem long sometimes though.
On Friday, we had a large group meeting. The subject was baptism and confirmation. Brother Littlefield, who was teaching, told a story of himself as a missionary. He was in Honduras and they were driving a car, when they saw a little girl crying on the side of the road. She was holding a basket of tortillas over her head and it was almost sundown. She told them that her mom was going to beat her if she didn’t sell all the tortillas by sundown. So they paid 50 cents for all of the tortillas, and she stopped crying and went back home. However, they realized they had done something wrong. They served her and went about doing good, which was great, but they should have also gone to her house and taught their family the gospel, so that they could be baptized. Many missionaries just serve instead of also sharing the gospel with people, because they are afraid that people will think it is a ploy to make our church have the most members. However, this is not so! Baptism performed by God’s authority is the only way to be saved. Through accepting Christ, this is possible. One of the necessary steps of accepting Christ is being baptized. As people do that, they covenant with Christ to serve him and keep his they will receive a multitude of blessings, the greatest of which is eternal life: The wonderful opportunity to live with God and those we love forever in eternal happiness. That is the greatest service you could ever do for anyone. That doesn’t mean that we are aggressive and force people into joining. We invite all people to Jesus Christ. They have the choice whether to accept this invitation.
In Revelation 3:20, Jesus says, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock: If any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.” Jesus Christ will always invite his brothers and sisters to follow him and to do good and to love others and to follow him through baptism. He wasn’t forceful though.
In the same way, missionaries like me are inviting people to follow Jesus Christ. We don’t intrude; we just invite.
Brother Littlefield realized that if they had truly loved that little girl, they would have told her and her family to baptized. I know that what I am writing is true.
I didn’t leave my family, college, friends, time I could have been doing study abroad, time to learn more Chinese and Spanish just to bring in more church members. I did it because it is true. Heavenly father has done everything for me. He helped me overcome depression, autism, hopelessness, and my sins. He sent Jesus Christ, his son, to help me accomplish all the things I have.
God defines my life. He is my best friend and he has never let me down. If it weren’t for him, I would not be here. Nor do I believe that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is just another church. It is Jesus Christ’s only church on the earth. This doesn’t mean that other churches are bad; they invite people to righteousness too, and the people in those churches teach goodness, and they understand Christ’s atoning sacrifice. But the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the only church to have the full truth about Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, as well as God’s authority to be baptized and to receive revelation from God to give to all of his children. This is true, and God bears record of it.
I will give a quick summary of everything that happened this week. On Saturday we mopped the stair wells in building 18M (the building with the health Clinic). In class, Fre’ Jean had a talk with us about MDT and how we could make it more productive. Sunday was fast Sunday this week, so we only had dinner. We also had mission conference, which includes the whole MTC. Sister Clegg, who is the wife of an MTC Presidency member, gave a talk on how to set up a baptismal service and how to do it to make it meaningful, memorable, spiritual experience for everyone, especially the person who is being baptized.
Well it is p-day again and I forgot to finish this letter and I can’t remember what happened the week before last week. I am going to start the next letter by actually telling you what happened.
Bye! I love you! Thank you for being so supportive!
Love, Elder Seamons
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