The Greatest Message in the World

This week was pretty great! There is a lot to be thankful for. We have been able to have a lot of lessons this week which always makes it a good week. I just love the spirit I feel while teaching someone the gospel. We have been working with a lot of less actives. I have found that I feel just as much joy seeing them come back to church again as I do when we bring a new person to church. It is all about building their faith. Whether we are working with someone who already knows the gospel or someone who has never heard of God, it is always great to see them feel the spirit as they begin to read the scriptures, pray, and come to church.

Something that I have struggled with this week was finding a way to adequately portray the importance of our message with those we meet on a daily basis. Too often I feel as though we get grouped up with any other christian church just trying to force our beliefs about God on everyone else, when that is not our message at all. I feel like asking someone "can we share a message about Jesus Christ with you?" doesn't help them understand the importance of this message. This is not just another message about Jesus Christ. This is the greatest message in the world. Jesus Christ has restored his church again to the earth. The same church that Christ established when he was on the earth. God has called a prophet in our day. There is someone that literally speaks to God. Someone like Moses, or Abraham, or Noah. The priesthood authority or the power to act in God's name has been restored to the earth. It allows us to run his church. People are now able to be baptized with that proper authority, which allows us to return to live with our Father in Heaven. We have the Book of Mormon, which is a second witness of Christ along with the Bible. I am so grateful for all the restored truths that have been brought back by our loving Father in Heaven. I just wish I could help others more fully understand how important this message is. It gives them a way to obtain their salvation. 

So many people we meet don't even care if there is a God. It is so sad. They don't understand how much he loves them and how much joy they could have by turning to him. I am so grateful for the gospel in my life. It has brought me infinite amounts of peace, joy and happiness. That is why I am on a mission so I can give others the chance to have that in their lives. I just pray that the people we talk to everyday will quit resisting the love that their father in heaven has for them. 

Love,

Elder Hallmark

 I forgot to mention, something amazing that happened this week was being able to baptize a little girl named Sacheen. We have been teaching her and her family to prepare her for baptism. Her family are all members except her Dad. Because he couldn't baptize her. Because we have been coming over to meet with the family she asked me to baptize her. It was such a special opportunity. I love that family so much and I am so grateful to be in their lives. 

 So at lunch this week we came out to go back to our car and found that we were stuck. Some police had arrested someone in the car next to ours and they were searching their car. They had it blocked off and we couldn't leave. We were stuck for over 30 mins.

 Elder Dougherty decided to buy in bulk this week so we bought a 10 pound package of ground beef to last us this whole month of lunches. It is amazing!!