Dear Children of God!

Dear Children of God!

I hope you had a great week!

Ours was quite interesting! 

We spent Monday in Garden City, Utah. Elder Beck, our district leader, was getting emergency transferred back to Pocatello because of a bunch changes to do with the new mission! We said good bye to him. Tuesday we went to Cokeville. Now everyone makes the joke that Cokeville is 99% mormon do there is no need for missionaries there. Well ya the town is probably 99% LDS BUT does need missionaries. I have learned in this area that people, even myself, give up on sharing the gospel with people because they have lived here forever. However, there is always, always people that need the hope that comes from Christ even if you have tried to share it before. So we went around Cokeville and you will never guess what we found a new investigator family that wants to learn more! It was pretty exciting. We went to Pocatello the next day for a Zone Conference. At this zone conference Elder Wilford W. Andersen of the Quorum of the Seventy visited! It was quite the experience. It was also great to see half the mission again! Some of my favorite quotes!

"Great Missionaries have great vision.” 

I think that applies to the rest of life as well. We need to have a vision of our eternal goal!

"Our great goal of life is to develop righteous desires"

What stuck out to me the most was the discussion on covenants. A covenant is a sacred agreement between God and a person or group of people. God sets specific conditions, and He promises to bless us as we obey those conditions. 

D&C 82:10 " I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise."

Covenants bring us power in our lives. As we keep our covenants we receive the blessings God wants to give us!

Anyway I have many thoughts in my brain. We were out contacting people and we knocked on a door. A lady opened and said she was busy all the time. Pretty much we don't want you to come over. Elder Johnson and I took the chance to declare the truth to her in just a few minutes. As she felt of the spirit and applied what we shared with her in her life, she became pretty emotional. She was beginning to once again feel the love of God! I wish everyone could feel that! She invited us back! MIRACLES!!

We gave talks in the Cokeville 2nd ward, two weeks in a row. I had the opportunity to be the last speaker, so I had 30 minutes both weeks and spoke the whole time. I only cried a little bit. I spoke on worthiness this week. Since Star Valley Wyoming is getting a temple soon! I shared some quotes from Elder Scott's talk The Power of Righteousness. 

"Continually bless your life with the power of righteousness. It builds confidence. It engenders trust. It yields enduring, worthy achievement. To be righteous is to seek intently to be obedient to the commandments of God. It is to be clean in thought and act. It is to be honest and just. Righteousness is shown more in acts than in words. A righteous life requires discipline. Discipline is that characteristic which will give you the strength to avoid giving up what you want most in life for something you think you want now. It is a friend, not a harsh taskmaster that makes life miserable. Discipline is easier to acquire when it is rooted in faith in Jesus Christ, when it is nourished by an understanding of His teachings and plan of happiness."

"By making choices consistent with eternal truth, you will develop righteous character and increasing strength to resist temptation. You are assured of the help of God in fulfilling your worthy decisions. You qualify to be led by the Spirit, to choose the correct path. It will warn you of temptations you might not otherwise recognize. The correct decisions you now make will help you prepare to be sealed in the temple to a worthy companion and to form and nurture your own eternal family. All who qualify for those blessings will, in the Lord’s due time, have them here or in the next life."

I hope you all have a fantastic week! 

I am working on Declaring truth so this is not only my testimony but truth.

God lives

He loves each one of us.

He has restored the truth through the Prophet Joseph Smith 

The Book of Mormon is evidence of that truth!

Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Rush

P.s. You should read 1 Nephi 13 this week in the Book of Mormon.

Elder Rush and Elder Johnson found back roads from Dingle to Pegram.

Cool Experience from Cokeville!

Hello Everyone,

Hope you had a great week!!!

Cool experience from Cokeville. We had a ton of referrals to contact but people were never home when we went over. We asked God to provide us with an opportunity to meet all these people and guess what they were all home! When we got there they were either sitting outside or pulling into their driveways. I know God leads and guides us as we seek his help. One lady told us she was too busy to talk to us because her dog was in the sink. She was giving it a bath! hahahah That night we stopped by a house to meet a lady named Margaret. She has been a mormon her whole life but never practiced. At her house we learned the importance of testifying. She invited us in to meet her 13 cats! LOTS OF CATS! As we talked to her about Jesus Christ, we realized she had never read the Book of Mormon. She keep telling us all she wants to do in life is follow God and learn about Jesus Christ. So we offered her a chance to read another testament of Jesus Christ (The Book of Mormon) and learn more about Him. She told us no because the book was write in todays times not in Christ's time and before, and normal people wrote it not prophets of God. We cannot prove the divine origin of the Book of Mormon to anyone, they have to read it and ask God if it is His and He will let them know. They have to take it on faith but we can bear testimony of its truth. Faith is kindled by hearing the testimony of those who have faith. We explained to her that the Book of Mormon was written 600 years before Christ's birth and 400 years after. We testified of prophets called of God directed to write His word. We showed her scriptures that spoke of what we told her. A few moments later she said " Wow, I need to read this." It was a really cool experience to see the Holy Ghost bear testimony to someone's heart and change their countenance.

We gave talks again this week. This time in the Pegram Branch. They meet in a church building but it is super small. The chapel had 5 benches to sit on. Way different. 

Sunday we were walking around Montpelier to find people. We met the Hackey family and Sister Hackey told us she did not really want to talk to us. However her husband came to the door and asked for a priesthood blessing. We gave him a blessing and after, his wife's countenance changed. They invited us back! It was really cool! 

Anyway! I hope you have a great week! 

Love and miss you a lot!

Love,

Elder Rush

A visit from The Stoddards. Elder Rush's other mama and dad.

I love Elder Rush's and Elder Johnson's ties!😂

Ribs for dinner! They left clean!

An e-mail conversation with my boy

I am good! Sorry I took so long to email. We helped someone brand calves this morning!

   Oh fun! Were you ok doing that with your tender heart?

Ya I did not help. I know I do not want to be a farmer or rancher when I grow up. We were in Liberty on the way to Preston. I am doing better now. President Hancock called on tuesday and we talked about me being sick. Brother Sorter called him and told him I was not looking well. So I went to the doctors and got a blood test. Guess what! I fainted when I got my blood taken! hahah! Anyways when I talked to President, he said do you want to train because I need another zone leader. That made me feel better. I felt some relief when he said that. I like Montpelier but I do not like small towns very much. I guess I am not use to them. I miss lots of people.

    I knew you wouldn't be able to brand them!

    Oh my dear, my boy😂😂, how are you going to go to medical school?

    Did they find anything out with your blood?

Well my doctor who is also our bishop said he faints when he watches his blood drawn so...but I have been thinking a lot lately about Dentistry or Optometry or Radiology or Oncology! So we will see. They took four samples they had two checked. So far all is normal!

Love you mom!!!! Hope you have a great week!

Love,

Elder Rush

I Hope We Can All Learn Our Divine Nature.

Hello Everyone!

I hope you had a great week!

This week was great for us! Things have been improving and moving forward!

As we tried again to meet as many people as possible we ran into a boy named Trayson. His brother had been meeting with the missionaries for awhile but he was never interested. As we talked to him he opened up to us about how he felt that he is a good person but something was missing. He had a hole inside of him that he did not know how to fill. He told us about his family problems and his little sister's death. It was amazing amazing amazing to see as we discussed our relationship with God (we being his children) he just lite up. And adding our testimony of our Savior, Trayson just wanted to learn more. He had question after question. It was an awesome experience to see the change in him, in just a few minutes! 

I had my interview with President Hancock this week. It was nice to see the Hancocks again. I really miss working with and seeing them weekly. Anyway, we discussed the idea of extending and President told me I have to go home sometime. So I probably won't extend my mission unless invited to do so by my Mission President! 

We had the opportunity to give a talk in the Montpelier 4th ward. I talked about the Godhead (Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost) and the relationship they have to the Plan of Salvation! I really enjoyed learning everything I did from preparing that talk!

My favorite talk of the week was from Elder Donald L. Hallstrom "I am a Child of God".

Great Talk! I invite you all to read it!

Here is a quote!

"In one of the most remarkable spiritual events of my life, I was taught a profound lesson that day. We live in a world that can cause us to forget who we really are. The more distractions that surround us, the easier it is to treat casually, then ignore, and then forget our connection with God. The Saints in Liberia have little materially, and yet they seem to have everything spiritually. What we witnessed that day in Monrovia was a group of sons and daughters of God who knew it!"

I hope we all can learn our divine nature!

I love you all!

Have a great week! 

Love,

Elder Rush

Companion ties 

Julie Tonga from Cokeville Wyoming, had Elder Rush and Elder Johnson over for dinner. She told me Elder Rush was Heaven sent. She said he is a great missionary. So positive and humble. It made my heart sing!