Working Hard in Marble Falls

Family,

Well it seems like you got a lot of things that are happening at home. Give my love to Grandpa and Grandma Harvey.

Thanks for the Easter package. It was great and felt like home as there was money in my eggs. Easter was great yesterday. Church was packed with families that haven't been to church for a long time, etc. The blessing of Christs' resurrection is a wonderful gift. I have really been studying the life of Christ by reading the New Testament and also been studying the Atonement a lot and I have changed a whole lot from it and have taken a little step to the future me. I've got 10 months left to become who I need to become.

Yes I'm still a District Leader and it is going great. My district has struggled for a long time to baptize and to teach people, but it is picking up and I'm grateful to be here. And so it is going great.

The work here in Marble Falls continues forward. Our area covers like 8 or more towns that are outside of Marble Falls and are just as big as Marble Falls and so we have a lot of work to do. The last Elder that was here just stayed in Marble Falls to work and knocked every street like 4 times and so we are going to get away from here. We finally did yesterday, and we went up to a town called Kingsland. We had the most amazing experience ever.

We went up there and started to visit part member families and some former investigators and we weren't really having any luck with them. We talked to some crazy people, drunk people that wanted to fight, and just flat out old people that were rude. But to finish off our night we went by this former investigator that had been to church a couple of times but obviously never got baptized. She didn't want anything to do with it. The great thing about it was that in Preach My Gospel it talks about knocking around former investigators and how some people will be ready to hear the gospel. As the council is given in Preach My Gospel, we strive to follow it. And so we did and started to knock around her. We talked to some people, they didn't want it, a lady said to come back, but as we were leaving her house, which was at the end of the street, we decided to go the opposite way of our truck. We were done with the street so we were going to go visit someone else. I don't know why we went the opposite way until we met Lynn. She was outside doing some gardening and so we saw her and started to talk to her. As we talked for about 10 minutes about who we are, getting to know her and bringing up the Gospel and Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon throughout it, she stopped planting, stood up and listened like I've never seen anyone listen before. She truly felt the Spirit. As it says in D&C "they will hearken unto your voice", she truly did that. The Book of Mormon really caught her attention because we explained what the blessings are if it is true. She was like "well I guess I need to read it." As we gave her one and continued to talk about it, she expressed to us how she had been wondering which church was true and trying to find the truth. As she was doing this she began to cry and felt the spirit testify that this was true. And then she opened the Book of Mormon, saw the picture of Jesus Christ, and said "Isn't He great?". It was a truly remarkable experience as I have never met someone so elect to hear the restored gospel.

As I pondered this experience, I felt so blessed from the Lord to be guided to her. We were real excited after talking to her and were just flabbergasted of how elect she was and how the Spirit testified over and over and over again. This work is true! The joy of missionary work has come into my life, especially after that experience.

I love you all!

Elder Harvey