Season 11 Episode 3: Goals, Goals, Goals!

Hello Friends & Family,

Elder Ericksen and I have been steadily planning out our goals and also how to achieve them. We set the ideal of 8 Home visits a week, and we hit 7 this past week.

We already have 4 planned and more will follow! 

We also are organizing our areabook into progressing friends, and creating individual plans of "attack" as to best help them overcome any roadblocks on the way to Salvation.

We were able to have a lesson with Stephen again! Stephen shared with us some weaknesses he wants to overcome, and together we made a plan on how to help. Essentially it is as follows: Any time he feels tempted for any reason, he will text us and we can share scriptures or some topic to study to help distract him from temptation.

We are very proud of this week and what we accomplished, and Elder Ericksen's enthusiasm matches that of Peter's! It is very exciting as well as entertaining to watch him plot, plan, scheme (all other synonyms of the word) what we can do to find success in our area.

Elder Hallsted and Ericksen have challenged each other to only eat food that has been blended. This includes any regularly solid foods. I'm not sure why or how this started, but it is entertaining, and slightly nerve-wracking after I saw them drink fish and rice. We will see how long this lasts!

I am roughly 50 pages from finishing "Jesus the Christ". There was a massive buildup to the Atonement being started in Gethsemane, but I will admit I was somewhat disappointed in Talmage's description. It was perfectly correct, but very brief. Essentially it went something like this, "We as mortal humans cannot begin to understand/comprehend what happened in the Garden" and that's it. 

I did learn quite a bit however about the governing powers at the time. Such as how the Sanhedrin initially brought Jesus under illegal pretenses, and also how they accused him of Blasphemy, a crime with a death sentence attached to it, but due to the ruling Roman empire, the punishment of death was reserved strictly for the Roman judges. After the Sanhedrin condemned Christ, they brought him before Pilate, and never once mentioned Blasphemy, but rather tried to convince Pilate that Jesus was guilty of insurrection. They created every excuse to plead the Death of Christ, except for the crime that the Sanhedrin had agreed upon. This is because Pilate would have immediately dismissed any accusation of Blasphemy because to him, a pagan, all of Judaism was Blasphemy. 

Just a cool find!! More will follow!

-Elder Vance