I love the Book of Mormon

This week I have been absorbed in reading the Book of Mormon! Have you just gotten so into reading that you don’t want to put the book down. I have never been able to do that with the Book of Mormon until this week. Instead of writing in my journal at night I picked up the Book of Mormon and began reading again before bed. I didn’t want to go to sleep. During personal study instead of reading talks or something else. Instead of really studying up on a topic that we might be teaching I read and read and read. I love the Book of Mormon.

So I began reading this week in Mosiah. The story of King Noah then the wickedness Noah. That Abinadi came and told the people they needed to repent. I love how bold Abinadi was, the people wanted to kill him because he told the truth, but he wouldn’t leave until he told the people ALL of what the Lord wanted him to. He wanted to be obedient to God’s commandments, and because of his faith and his obedience he died. Alma was the only one that believed on the word of Abinadi. He went and began to preach to the people too in secret, so that he too would not get killed. Alma was able to baptize himself and Helam. Alma knew that he wasn’t the best person and he had made many mistakes in his life, but he repented, and he tried his hardest to be able to live up to what God wanted him to. Because of His faith, and his love for the Lord he was able to hear the Lord and save the people before King Noah came and killed him.

Then in Alma how it is all about the Atonement and about knowing the Lord. I just want to share some of my favorites this week:

Alma 5:14

And now behold, I ask of you, my brethren of the church, have ye spiritually been born of God? Have ye received his image in your countenances? Have ye experienced this mighty change in your hearts?

We need to become humble, we need our own conversion, and we need to trust the Lord. So have we been spiritually born? We all have come to the earth because we chose Heavenly Father’s plan in the premortal life, we have agency here on earth though. So we have been physically born, and been given our bodies so that we can have the freedom to choose the Lord. While we are here we need to be spiritually born, we need to choose Him, and His plan! So we need to want to change the way that we are living so that we can live with Him once again. That mighty change needs to happen in us.

Then in Alma 5:26 it says

And now behold, I say unto you, my brethren, if ye have experienced a change of heart, and if ye have felt to sing the song of redeeming love, I would ask, can ye feel so now?

If we choose the Lord then we will want to repent and feel the power of the Atonement in our lives. That is the redeeming love that we can feel. We are not alone. We all make mistakes, we all can feel guilty sometimes, but if we choose the Lord and we use the power of the Atonement that guilt will melt away.

Alma 5:33

Behold, he sendeth an invitation unto all men, for the arms of mercy are extended towards them, and he saith: Repent, and I will receive you

Wouldn’t you want His arms around you? To comfort you and help you through your trials??

Alma 5:45-46

45 And this is not all. Do ye not suppose that I know of these things myself? Behold, I testify unto you that I do know that these things whereof I have spoken are true. And how do ye suppose that I know of their surety?

46 Behold, I say unto you they are made known unto me by the Holy Spirit of God. Behold, I have fasted and prayed many days that I might know these things of myself. And now I do know of myself that they are true; for the Lord God hath made them manifest unto me by his Holy Spirit; and this is the spirit of revelation which is in me.

I know that we all need to find out for ourselves, we cant just believe ever word that comes out of someone's mouth. Well we don’t have to. We can pray and find out for ourselves. I love that. I am not a good teacher at all. All I know is that the Holy Ghost is going to testify to everyone that I am talking to and tell them that it is true! I have a testimony that it is true and I know that the Holy Ghost is my constant companion telling all those that I am talking to that it is true as well.

Alma 7:5

And I trust, according to the Spirit of God which is in me, that I shall also have joy over you; nevertheless I do not desire that my joy over you should come by the cause of so much afflictions and sorrow which I have had for the brethren at Zarahemla, for behold, my joy cometh over them after wading through much affliction and sorrow.

The joy has come because of our trials and our sorrows. I know that I have learned so much from all the trials that I have gone through. I know that at the time I never wanted to go through the trial. I asked God why would you make this happen to me, why do I have to go through this, but if I hadn’t then where would I be now? Where would any of us be? We wouldn’t be happy. We wouldn’t know happiness without sorrow.

I have also read a lot of great talks this week about remembering Jesus Christ. Why do you think it is important to remember Him? How do we remember Him? One of the talks that I read is from Elder D. Todd Christofferson. His talk basically talks about how we must never forget Him because without His Atonement and Ressurrection, life would have no meaning. The ways we can remember him is to seek to know and follow the will of Christ just as He sought the will of the Father, to prepare to answer Christ for every thought, action, and word, and lastly Fear not and look to the Savior for help. He asks the Lord to reveal anything in his life that needed correction. Do we do that? Do we ask Heavenly Father if there is anything that we need to still repent for so that we can be doing everything that we need to do to be closer to Heavenly Father. Because nothing is hidden from Him. There is no part of our lives that can be kept from the knowledge of the Father and the Son. He said, “ Whatever we get away with in life or manage to hide from other people we must still inevitable day comes that ewe are lifted up before before Jesus Christ.

Well I guess that I should stop talking about all I learned this week and tell everyone what happened. So I have some bad news… Rinku and her family dropped us today. She says it will be too much of a hassle to come back from Santa Monica to come to church on Sunday after her 5 year old son has his tennis lessons at UCLA. I feel devastated. I feel like I might have done something wrong. However, she did say that they went to the LA temple over the weekend and saw the visitors center. They still want to investigate the church just not here even though they have a their house here. They are going to in Santa Monica. Then Ana and Jacob will not answer our text messages or our phone calls. So I don’t know if they want to go investigate anymore. Candaice is going to the young single adults ward. Then Silvena… She is doing so well she says that she is considering baptism which what she wasn’t sure about when she was investigating in Utah. The only bad part is that she lives in the other ward boundaries and we are going to have to give her over this week. Then there is Fannie. So on Sunday she just walked into church because the Lord told her that is what she needs to go. She has been feeling like she needed to come for 3 weeks and every time she feels that way she decides not to go until this Sunday. She pulled into the parking lot and left 3 different times before she finally came in. Sister Herrada found her wondering around the halls during sacrament meeting  so she came and got us. Fannie decided to stay for all 3 hours! She shared her testimony in Relief society and says that she wants to come back every single Sunday. She felt a good feeling inside and knew that this is where she is supposed to be. The only bad thing is that she is in the other ward as well. So we literally have no investigators anymore. We went tracting for around 10 hours this week and probably only had 15 people open up the door, and only 2 said we could come back. Everyone is working and I think that the members are getting sick of seeing us come and give them lessons each week. I honestly have no idea what to do anymore. Tracting is supposed to be the last resort and we now need another last resort. So please pray for us, pray to help us find people to teach, to know what we can do with our time. WE have even tried finding service and no one will let us help them. We really need help.

I really do love my mission, and I hope that we can find those that we need in this area. The recent convert in our ward is getting her Patriarchal blessing this week and she has invited us to come with her. I know that we are helping her, and maybe that is the reason we are here. Please help the missionaries in your area though. Give them people to teach.

I hope that all of you are going to have a great week. I love you all.

Love,
Sister Jessica Bell

P.S.  The weather this week has been really nice this week though only 80! And it kinda rained this week!!!