Ice Storms and Baptisms and Quarters - Jan 29 - 2013

Everybody!

 

I just had the song "Move Your Feet" by Junior Senior jog my memory. You should go listen to it because I can't and won't right now. :)

 

How is life for you? My life is going great! The last few days have been kind of gloomy here in Des Moines. Weather-wise that is. Gayle was Baptized on Saturday! It was a beautiful service! Elder Hess had the opportunity to baptize her! It was the first time he has baptized someone. It was beautiful and the Spirit was definitely there! Due to an ice storm, the Bishopric of our ward cancelled church yesterday, so she will not be Receive the Holy Ghost until this upcoming Sunday in Sacrament Meeting. For all of you who recognize, Gayle fulfilled one of her steps in the Gospel of Jesus Christ on Saturday and will fulfill the next step this Sunday!

 

It was really weird to not have church. The last time I can remember church being cancelled was when we lived in Oregon, when severe ice storms there cancelled church and school for a week! Especially as a missionary it was pretty odd. But we worked anyway. Running to catch busses and sliding on the ice. Neither of us fell yesterday though! *knock on wood*

 

We got a mormon.org referral via text this week. A referral is when someone tells us we should go see a specific person. Whether or not they are interested or not we don't know, but it is exciting to have someone tell us to specifically go and see someone! When a person goes to http://mormon.org/eng/, they can visit http://mormon.org/missionaries and fill in their information to request the missionaries to come over to teach them about the church. Anytime someone does this and the person lives within our area that we serve in, we receive their information in a text. It is amazing how the church uses technology to further missionary work! We had someone refer themselves using mormon.org. We called them, set up an appointment and visited them. His name is Michael. He is a prepper. Someone who prepares for the future by assembling food storage, water storage, and guns. He is part of a group of people here in Des Moines that all prep. They all took a different preparation book to read and to bring to the next meeting the share what they learned from the book. His book was the LDS prep book. He was so impressed he wanted to find out more about the LDS people. He visited mormon.org and asked us to come. He is an intelligent man who had a lot of quesitons about organization of the church. He was open to reading and praying about the Book of Mormon and had an open mind. It was awesome!

 

With church being cancelled due to the ice storm, the members needed to know about it. The Bishopric called the auxilliary and priesthood presidencies, who called the people in their organizations. A kind of built-in phone tree from the way Jesus Christ has organized His church. We were walking past another church around 1pm and they had a piece of paper with the words "Church Cancelled" in blue marker taped to the door. I wonder what those people did when they found out they had no church. One of those trivial examples that adds to my testimony that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the only church on earth with the Fulness of the Gospel. We preach to follow Jesus, and to follow him Exactly. Everything that the church is about centers on that belief. Because it is His church, Christ set it up that it would be no other way.

 

I love you all and hope that all goes well for you. And by the way, I hit my 6-month mark this Friday, on February 1st. Can you believe I have already served 1/4 of my mission? I sure can't! I've got a lot of work to do in an increasingly shorter time. Even though you may not be a full-time missionary, I testify that you can share the Gospel with someone, no matter where you are, and it doesn't matter if they are a member of this true church or not. Everyone needs kindness in their lives. Good things come from God. So be God's hand in someone's life this week! I'd love to hear what you did for someone else and how it made you feel! After all, "when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God" (Mosiah 2:17, Book of Mormon). We are to be happy, and that is what God wants for us!

 

Love you!

Elder Zachary R McKenzie

Iowa Des Moines Mission

    D&C 6:34, 36

Doubt Not, Fear Not.
Faith in 550 for Christ in 2013