Elder Hanson: We All Have Agency

With the shooting in Washington, that’s pretty sad, but things are probably only going to get worse. But we know that things always get worse just before something good happens. The world is a pretty scary place.

This week was good. We got to stop by and see a lot of members and got to know them. It’s kind of scary still that there were only 22 members at church. I would never thought of going on a mission and have that be something I would deal with. It’s completely different from all my areas with about 100 plus members. But, they are very strong members. They were telling us about how a year or so ago there were about 70 members and it was made up of about two big families. I like to call them the Hatfield’s and McCoy’s because I’ve only heard stories but they were two families that fought and ended up both leaving the church and all that are left are those that were not part of the families. I talked to a member that said it’s now a much "better place". That’s just scary. It sounds like a story or a movie, but they all have to come from somewhere. It’s very sad that that happened and that people don’t see the Gospel as a relationship with God. Instead they see church as a social event which means they don’t understand the scriptures at all. In the U.K., church has started tilting in that direction of it just "being a social thing" and that’s why religion is plummeting in Scotland, I think. So it’s hard to teach people in a society where they think that’s what religion is.

Another random thing is that I was listening to a recording of a meeting that we had in Holywood and a part that really stuck with me was when we were talking about how all these YSA go to a born again church with rock music and all the fireworks but Bishop pretty much just said, ‘Well all that we have is the truth and when we think that’s not enough, then that’s a bad thing’.

With all that being said, I see that this work is just hard, but I can do it and I have done it this far. So nothing can stop me. I may be the only way for these people to receive that truth. It doesn’t matter if they accept it, it just matters that I let them use their agency.

An update of the week, a lot of our investigators have dropped us and we are pretty much just finding all day, every day but that’s all we can really do for now. I love you and I pray for Dad all the time and I know he will be ok.

!The spirit is so powerful and it works exactly the same as the scriptures promise and always will.

Love Elder H.