What an interesting week this has been!! My companion Elder Salyer has still been somewhat sick and so we've been going day by day on what we should or shouldn't do. So we haven't been able to do a lot of finding this week but we've had some incredible lessons! And wow the spirit has really magnified the efforts we have been putting in. 

We have a new friend we met last week, who we gave a church tour to the next day, and who came to church the very next day! She is a mom with 3 wonderful daughters who have been so much fun to teach. The spirit has helped me to adapt my teaching to make sense to children while not compromising the beautiful depths of the doctrine of Jesus Christ. A sad thing though is that their dad told them that God was not real…. but one of the girls said firmly that she knows God is real because she can FEEL him. That made me so happy to hear the spirit working in such a young life! ❤️

We also gave a temple tour to our new member and friend Vicky and it was a great experience! The spirit was super powerful. 

Some other fun things that happened is we went to Buc-ee's and I got a new blanket and a delicious Philly cheesesteak burrito which was bussing. We also went to a wedding reception for the Busch family and it was a lot of fun! It was a beautiful and relaxed reception and they had Crumbl cater 600 cookies!! As we go into the final week of the transfer, what could be my final week here, it felt very fitting to get to see a marriage between two people – one from each of our wards!! So like everyone from both wards we serve was there. 

I would like to share one thought I have had this week. I may not believe in pronouns, paying 8 cents per plastic bag, that the grand canyon was formed by a little river, that Jesus Christ and God the Father don't have bodies, or in dinosaurs 🦖🦕

But it's okay… I still believe in the flood from the story of Noah! 🌊😂 But more importantly I believe that Jesus Christ is for everyone and that this is HIS work. While teaching another child this week, I thought to myself, even if he is never baptized while I am here… he will never forget this time. He can grow up and in his 30's meet missionaries and remember how back when he was little, his best friends were members and they had missionaries in their home to teach them! 

Take even our friend Vicky for example, who has her own adult children now who are off doing their own incredible things. And yet in her age she has now found the true and restored gospel of Jesus Christ. She has known about the church her whole life, been taught by missionaries in 2021 and has had so many members of the Church leave positive impacts on her life. And yet none of them have any idea she was baptized!! And how special it was for my companions and I to get to play a role in her conversion. To be the one who got to baptize her! It makes me think about how the Lord is always magnifying our efforts. I am sure someday, someone I have met, will be baptized by missionaries years down the road and I will have no idea. And that's because this is HIS work not ours. I now understand what Alma meant when he said:

Alma 29:

9 I know that which the Lord hath commanded me, and I glory in it. I do not glory of myself, but I glory in that which the Lord hath commanded me; yea, and this is my glory, that perhaps I may be an instrument in the hands of God to bring some soul to repentance; and this is my joy.

10 And behold, when I see many of my brethren truly penitent, and coming to the Lord their God, then is my soul filled with joy; then do I remember what the Lord has done for me, yea, even that he hath heard my prayer; yea, then do I remember his merciful arm which he extended towards me.

With Love,

Elder Noble