In your patience possess ye your souls

Hello family! It's been another rough week in the work of the ministry but I feel things will get at least a little better.

 I'm glad to hear that Dad is recovering. Your faith in the Lord astounds me. I will continue to pray and bring forth good works which I know will bring blessings here and also for you all back home.

Apparently the Lord thinks I have some attributes that still need some fine tuning. And he's right of course. So I'll keep working on them. One that I really could afford to continue in is Charity. Several weeks back, Uncle Jim sent me some of his words on Charity and it really helped me. I will continue to try to have love and acceptance for people.

There isn't really a spirit of obiedience up here in the North Stake. In fact, most of the place is rank with the stench of disobedience. I've been able to spend a little time with one of the Zone Leaders this week and he says it's a huge problem that they have been trying to correct, but the last attempts seem to have had a similar effect as the efforts of the Nephites to turn the hearts of the Lamanites back to God as recorded in Enos. "But our labors were vain; their hatred was fixed, and they were led by their evil nature." 

It seems that we are now in the Begining phases of what was done to contain the Nephites from their own wickedness. "And there was nothing save it was exceeding harshness, preaching and prophesying of wars, and contentions, and destructions, and continually reminding them of death, and the duration of eternity, and the judgments and the power of God, and all these things—stirring them up continually to keep them in the fear of the Lord. I say there was nothing short of these things, and exceedingly great plainness of speech, would keep them from going down speedily to destruction." I think the key to all this is forgetting about them. If they doeth that which is evil, they do it unto themselves and will be held accoutable. If they perish, they perish unto themselves (Helaman 14:30).

Anyway, I am doing better than I was. My comp is still content to walk in his path, but we will continue to find a way to get along. He seems to have at least somewhat of a good heart. But he has some anger issues and a lot of other stuff that is a pain. Perhaps I will only be with him for 3 more weeks. I will continue to pace myself here and work hard. I think that the future should be good. My language skills are improving, and my companion is helping me. I'm learning this area faster than any prievious one. I'm becoming much better at teaching and finding the best ways to cordinate with members. And I am keeping myself obedient. Thank you all for your prayers on my behalf.

Love,

Elder Higginson

Testimony of Obedience

Well, my email this week might be a bit more brief, seeing as that I'm short on time. This week has been super hard for me. I'd just like to talk about Obedience.

God has given us a number of commandments that He knows will bring blessings into our lives and prepare us for exaltation. If we are to live with God again we must live in a way that is acceptable to Him, in fact we are commanded to live as He does (Matt: 5:48). "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."

God told Moses that His work and His glory was to "bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man", therefore He does not give a commandment unto the children of men save the purpose of it is to bring blessings into our lives, including greater spiritual power, the Holy Ghost, power to resist temptation, and the power to endure all things. As people humble themselves before the Lord, He gives the commandments and as they become more prepared - He gives them higher laws, that in turn, bring greater blessings.

To the children of Israel He gave the 10 commandments, a a subsequent preparatory law because their hearts were hard and their spiritual sensity dull. They had been given a higher law but they proved that they could not obey it. To keep them under control, the Lord gave aproxamately 600 sub-commandments that would keep the people in line, because "the rebelious and disobiedient have more need of masters." And Titus 1:9 The law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient. It was not until much later that they were given the higher law by Jesus Christ, to which the Mosaic law had been but preparatory.

We are reminded constantly in the scriptures of the results of Disobiedience. (D&C 64:36) And when we recive commandments with Doubtful hearts the scriptures say we are Damned : (D&C 58)

The key is obeying for the right reasons (D&C: 64:34). When we use our agency in the way that God wanted us to from the begining, we shall have Him on are side and He will fight our battles for us.

Rember that in keeping all the commandments of God there is safty and sactification by the spirit.
"I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise."

To those that follow the Lord, come those great blessings and joy.
"Behold, the Lord requireth the heart and a willing mind; and the willing and obedient shall eat the good of the land of Zion in these last days."  (D&C 64:34)

That we will all humble ourselves and partake of the blessings of the kingdom is my prayer,

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Back In The North!

Hello everyone! This has been one heck of a week and I'm pleased with how things are going!

Congratulations on the completion of the amphitheater! Seems like it was quite the experience! And of course I must with Ashlynn a happy birthday! Happy birthday Blue Star! hahaha, Joke lang :) From the pictures I've been seeing, seems like everyone is growing up quite a bit! I look foreward to seeing you all in a little over a year.

So I parted ways with Elder Ronquillo last week to come up to the North Stake, Tagalog speaking. My new companions name is Elder Ortega and he's been out for about 20 months. He was one of the very first Tagalog Missionaries and he's lived in a lot of places, Starting in the Philipines and ending in Idaho. He learned most of his Tagalog in the mission field and he's really good.  He's super cool and easy to get along with. There are a lot of different people we are working with up here and things are going really well! We've already taught a ton of lessons since I've been here and we are super busy!

Sister Van Vleet is again in one of the areas we cover! She's actually sitting right behind me emailing at the St. Albert Library haha! It's good to be back to my first area again, this town is really a nice place. I'm good friends with a lot of people here already so I'll make sure they know I'm back and set up some supper appointments, which Elder Ortega is exited about :) There are a lot of good members up here.

We got a less active to church this Sunday, named Von. He's a less active young guy and is really philosophical haha. He's super nice though. Church went well except for one of the speakers passed out during his talk and the bishop and his counselors

had to catch him, and then try to revive him. It was all good afterwards though, he was fine.

Yesterday was Canadian Thanksgiving so since nobody wants their door knocked on that day, we went out street contacting in down-town Edmonton with a few other sets of missionaries. There is another Missionary by the name of Elder Lincoln Berguson and he is super good at the Piano so he played on the corner and we talked to people, gave out hot chocolate and conducted a poll to find out what people are thankful for. It was really great and we passed out a lot of cards and got some peoples info. And only one guy was bashy! I'll send some pictures of the deal later on.

Anyways, I'm super happy to be serving up here. The Work is fast-paced, the people and missionareis are awesome and I'm going to dig in and learn this crazy jungle language and the giant area. Do your best and let the Lord take care of the rest, right? yea that's right.

Love,

Elder Higginson

Balm of Gilead

Hello everyone! Well there have been some ups and downs this week, but it's all working together for my good. Things are picking up in the area again now that I am about to leave!

Firstly, Conference was Awesome! I only missed one talk because of drowsiness haha, which is too bad because it was Dallin H. Oaks and he is a stud! I'll have to go back and read it. :)

The First Talk of the conference by Elder Uchtdorf was killer entitled "it works." Don't over complicate the gospel!
"Church leaders must strictly protect the Church and the gospel in its purity and plainness and avoid putting unnecessary burdens on members."

It's so cool that Elder Renlund is a member of the 12 now!! it was only a few short months ago that he came to address the Bonny Doon Stake while I was serving with Elder Jennings. He had some wonderful insights. I believe he referred to Doctrine & Covenants as "D&C" during his talk, which should never be done hahaha! Elder Jennings and I had a good laugh about that one. Annndd now he's an Apostle so no more room for error. :) He actually came to visit the non-member husband of one of the Ward missionaries in our ward. Elder Renlund sat down with him, his spouce and the family and finally got him accept the invitation to read the Book of Mormon. He started coming to church regularly after that. Elder Renlund is every wit an Apostle of God.

This week we had exchanges. I went with my Zone Leader, Elder Barber and it was a much needed respite. We were walking out of the Library and getting into our car when I saw an Indian man nearby and said hello to him. He recognized us as some sort of ministers and he wanted to sit down with us and learn about are church, so we set up an appointment for the following morning at 11:00 A.M. He was right on time to our appointment (which was so nice) and we taught him the first lesson. Elder Barber and I had prepared in the morning to teach someone without a Christian background, but we found he had looked into a lot of religions, born Hindu, and studied at a Catholic School. We had a super spiritual visit and his questions were great. He's just an honest truth seaker who is confused with so many religions in the world.  He then offered one of the most sincere prayers I've probably ever heard and ask God if he would reveal the truth of the Book of Mormon to him. They will have another lesson next week. I look forward to hearing what happens!

And of course, the big news: I am getting transferred to the North of Edmonton. The area includes places like Ft. McMurry and Grand Prairie, which are about 5 hours North. I am looking forward to giving this my all! The Last 7 weeks have been a struggle for me, but I have repented, exercised faith, brought forth good works and prayed continually without ceasing. I have tread this personal wine press of the fierceness and wrath of almighty God, and I am confident that he is pleased with my offering. I was in need of this divine chastening.

I'm glad that you have all enjoyed conference and I thank you for your outpourings of insight upon me. Special thanks to Uncle Jim and to Mother for your remarks, they have touched my soul and strengthened my faith in my family. So let us all press on!

Love,

Elder Higginson