Weekly

Well this week was a blur,  but I will try to recap everything. 

Tuesday was exchanges with Brandermill, I went with Elder Hansen, who had been out all of 5 days at that point, and we went street contacting on VCU campus, which is terrifying even still for me, but he handled it like an old pro, we taught a few lessons to some of our people, it was good. 

Wednesday was back to back exchages with Elder Jones and Loftus, the other set of elders in our ward. I went with Elder Loftus, we taught a guy named JB, he's a youth pastor at another church and knows his stuff, we had a really really good conversation with him and exchange of ideas, we talked about the Plan of Salvation mostly, and we pointed him to a few places in the bible where he could read about where we get the reasoning for what we belive, he was pretty struck when we showed him biblical evidence. Thats what happens when people hear true doctrine for the first time. We also taught Kashish, one of our investigators the plan of salvation, hes from India and from a Hindu background, a little different teaching someone without a christian background, but hes super cool, he even came to church this week! hoping to have him on date soon.  Wednesday night we also had finding night, so we basically go out to find the people 18+ who still are going to their family wards to recruit them to come to the YSA ward. 

Thursday was the usual grind, finding, contacting ect......

Friday was Zone Conference! Which is always a blast, we talked about member trust, safeguards, and consistency through change. I also sang a musical number with a few other missionaries, that was pretty fun. President and Sister Smith took us through a slideshow of when they took a trip to the Holy Land, and we talked about Easter and the atonement of Christ and the resurrection. President introduced an Easter Challenge for us to do in the weeks leading up to Easter. 

Thats about it for this week, but I wanted to share Mosiah 28:3,  

"Now they were desirous that salvation should be declared to every creature, for they could not bear that any human soul should perish; yea, even the very thoughts that any soul should endure endless torment did cause them to quake and tremble"

Let us all be desirous to share salvaition to every human soul! Personal conversion to Christ is the backbone of what we do, let us all press on in our own conversions and help others along the way. 

Elder McArthur 

Transfers

Hey! Dang this week has been nuts, I'll try to recap it all......

So the beginning of this week we visited a few different members and said goodbye to some of my favorite members. Wednesday I packed up all my worldly possessions into 3 suitcases and drove to Richmond. 

So here's the news, I'm now serving in downtown Richmond! My new area is Chippenham YSA, so I'm serving in downtown! We spend most of our time on VCU campus (Virginia Commonwealth University). It is super sweet, college kids are crazy, also VCU is mostly a liberal arts college so you know there are some weirdos out here. But my new Comp is a Elder Chapman, everyone was surprised cause were already good buds haha, I'm super excited for this transfer. 

We're working with a few solid people, Pranav, who I met the first day here, we taught him the restoration and it was sweet! We're also working with a few people that I haven't met yet but it seems like their doing good. 

Anyway not too much else here to report on. Love you guys!

Elder McArthur 

1215 Hermatige Road Apt. 1111

Richmond, VA 23220

Blessed Are Those Who Keep The Commandments

Hey Y'all

We kicked off this week with exchanges with the Spanish Elders, Ridenour and Lemmon. It was in their area so we were doing Spanish work. It's always fun to sit there like an idiot pretending like you know what everyone is saying Haha.

To be honest, not a whole lot happened this week, we just went about our usual day to day, finding, lunch, finding, dinner, finding. We had a few lessons with Andrew and Bianca, more like we just stopped in to say hi a few times, they're tricky to get actual lessons with but we stopped in to let them know we're still there. They were coming to church but Bianca woke up sick :/ 

Transfer calls were on Saturday, drum roll........I'm getting transferred! Dont know where yet, I'll find out at transfer meeting but it will be new and exciting for sure. I'm sad to be leaving Culpeper though, these little towns in the middle of nowhere Virginia really grow on you after a while..... 

Thought for the week, Mosiah 2:41, "blessed are those who keep the commandments! "

Elder McArthur 

Today we hiked Old Rag, one of the tallest mountains in Virginia standing at a whopping 4000ish ft. It was a 10 mile long round trip, my feet are dead Haha

Incredible views though

"We Knew of Christ"

Hey Y'all, this week was pretty good

Monday night we drove down to Fredericksburg for exchanges and were there all day Tuesday and Wednesday.

Tuesday was awesome, got go spend all day tabling(set up a table with a poster and a few other things) on UMW's campus, stopping random students as they walk past. I talked to a couple really awesome people and handed our a ton of BOM's with the other missionaries there, later that day we had a lesson with someone that I found on the last exchange with these Elders, shes on date now which is awesome! During the lesson, which was in one of the buildings on campus, this girl was just eyeballing us the whole time and right after we were done she came up and asked to talk with us. I guess they had given her a BOM a week or so before, anyway she just started bashing hard core, she's studying anthropology, so you know she kept saying how there is no evidence to substantiate our claims blah blah blah, eventually she started saying how when Nephi asked the Lord to give him strengthen according to his faith in God to break his bands that he was bound with, she said that he prayed wrong cause you can only pray according to the faith God has in you, not the faith you have in God. That's news to me I guess. But she was crazy Haha. 

Wednesday, one of the Elders we were on exchanges with had a hernia and had surgery for it on Wednesday, so most of the day was spent in the hospital, waiting for him to be thru with surgery. We did (I did) get to talk to the doctors and nurses and ask them lots of questions during the pre-op, so I loved that. At the end of the day we had Interviews with President Smith, which were great, then we drove back to Culpeper. 

Saturday was exchanges again with the Piedmont Elders in my district, it was a good day, lots of door knocking, they other set did find a new person for us to teach though, so that was a huge miracle. Sunday we knocked doors all afternoon in the rain. People kept telling us to stay dry Haha, it'd be a lot dryer if you let us in that's for sure lol. 

Thought for this week- Jacob 4:4-5

The crazy girl was all caught up on how Nephi was writing during old testament times but kept talking about Christ and his resurrection. She was baffled how the Old Testament wasn't as clear as the BOM and therefore it must've been written by Joseph Smith lol. Another testimony to me of the truthfulness of the Book and how it truly does clarify and expound upon the things we know in the bible.

P.S. transfer calls are this Saturday so I'll find out then if I stay or not. 

4 For, for this intent have we written these things, that they may know that we knew of Christ, and we had a hope of his glory many hundred years before his coming; and not only we ourselves had a hope of his glory, but also all the holy prophets which were before us.

5 Behold, they believed in Christ and worshiped the Father in his name, and also we worship the Father in his name. And for this intent we keep the law of Moses, it pointing our souls to him; and for this cause it is sanctified unto us for righteousness, even as it was accounted unto Abraham in the wilderness to be obedient unto the commands of God in offering up his son Isaac, which is a similitude of God and his Only Begotten Son.