2 Peter 3:12–A Fervent Heat! And Baptisms! June 15 2015

A Canadian Baptism!

2 Peter 3:12–”Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?”

To give you a perspective of how the weather was this week, this scripture sums it up great! We are out here, trying to hasten the work, preparing for the “coming of the day of God” and it feels like the stinkin’ heavens are on fire! It hit +30 Celsius a few times last week and with the humidity it has been brutal. But I still love the island–though I wish it would rain so it would be green again! We did get to work with some water this week though–My old investigator up in Courtenay finally got baptized! I knew it would just be a matter of time. He is so amazing. I went up with the Senior couple–the Burns–Sunday night for the baptism and it was awesome. I got to see all of my old Courtenay ward buddies and converts! Sooo great.

The other big event from the week is that an Elder in Duncan was really sick with Vertigo, so Elder Higley went down to take his place for the week. He was the surrogate district leader down there while Elder Swallow and I were left in Nanaimo to run everything else. It was a good week, but sure a stressful one! We are still in that situation, but hopefully we will get Elder Higley back up here before too much longer! This week we are taking our 2015 Cruze in to get the bumper replaced (a certain companion (Elder Swallow) backed into a pole a couple weeks back because he was only watching the backup camera!) and so we will be on transit for a couple days. Elder Higley probably won’t want to come back for that… But hey, at least now we get to burn off more fat! We’ve been trying to walk more this past week to save Kilometers and burn fat, and it is at least helping us find more people to teach! We were walking on Saturday, and some random guy pulls over and goes, “Hey! Do you guys want to do a good deed?” To which I responded, “Is it something Jesus would do?” And he said, “Probably!” So I said, “Good enough for me! What can we do for you?” He had us get in his car (I know, I know, he was a stranger and stuff–but the spirit didn’t say no!) and he drove us to his house. It was a miracle that we ran into him. He is a potential investigator (someone that missionaries had met before and wrote down to go see him again sometime) and was so grateful for our help. We helped him chop a bunch of wood, and he had this wicked Swedish axe he had just purchased. Elder Swallow had never chopped wood before so I got to use it, and it cut through wood like butter! It was sweet. After that, we did some service for the 2nd counselor in the Bishopric. He rides Harley’s, has two pit bull guard dogs (one of which is autistic) and used to be a bootlegger. So he’s pretty awesome.

That was all on Saturday, but the other days of the week were filled with crazy stuff like that too! We called through a bunch of our potential investigators, one of which was just named, “J, Mike’s brother”. With not a clue what that meant, I gave it a call and J is legit! We set up an appointment, grabbed our favorite Native Priest-age young man—-and drove to his house. He lives in the middle of nowhere–about 30 minutes from Nanaimo town center–but it was beautiful where he lives! We taught him the Restoration and he especially clicked with The Great Apostasy doctrine. After that, he just ate everything else up! It was great. So we taught some amazing people this week, worked our butts off, hit standards and the zone did superb. It was a tiring week, but Sister Tilleman (former mission President’s wife) always said, “A successful missionary is a tired missionary!” So I must be doing something right.

I had better finish up this email before I run out of time! Lastly, I just want to bear you all my testimony, my witness that the Gospel of Jesus Christ brings spiritual healing. It repairs hearts, spirits, minds and even bodies. As we live the commandments (even just out of sheer obedience, which hopefully turns into willful obedience at some point!) God gives us blessings–even if that blessing is just us opening our eyes to the blessings God has already given us! Family, friends, our own skills and self-worth–all of these are blessings and gifts from God! As we hearken to the words of Christ and “press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having…a love of God and all men [ourselves included!]” (2 Nephi 31:20) we can and will Endure to the End so we can have Eternal Life. We need to keep applying the Gospel into our lives and always be changing so we can one day become perfect. We may not be perfect, but we can truly become perfect at trying. So keep trying, keep doing your best and God will help you out. He will open the windows of Heaven and pour you out blessings. I know these things are true because I have been doing them the best I can over the last two years. I know these things are true for everyone else as well, because I’ve seen it change lives during my time as a missionary. I testify of these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen!

I love you all so much and I hope your week goes fabulous! Bye for now!

–Elder Rushton The Third

Picture: From the left is Elder Robinson, Me, Akshay (don’t know why he has his hand up…), and Elder Salazar!