The YSA

Hello my Family!

Well first off, Braydy congrats on the state championship win! That's so cool. I won state in.....GT once! Haha yeah, that's all I got. I'm really proud of you though.

Well we've had a pretty good were here in the YSA. Elder Johnson and Moffett are with me, and we were able to get some good things done around here. Because there's quite a few recent converts and less actives in the ward, the Bishop has asked that we start teaching some of the missionary discussions to them. That's been a lot of fun for us, and the difference between working in a family ward and the YSA really starts to become apparent. Everyone that we're teaching is so sharp, and in turn we have to make sure that we really know what we're talking about. Many of them ask really probing questions about the gospel, not to critique it, but so that they can answer those questions when asked by other people.

We had a pretty neat lesson with some investigators this week as well. David and Nikki are the students at the predominantly Church of Christ attended college in the area. They're extremely nice and truly just want to know what it is that we believe. We met with them two weeks ago, and then met with them again yesterday. At the beginning of the lesson I asked them about what they've read in the Book of Mormon.....David responded with, "Oh, well I've read all of 1 Nephi." I was shocked, and Nikki actually felt bad because she had "only" read the first 6 chapters of 1 Nephi. They weren't quite sure about what they felt when they read, but we prompted them to continue reading and marked some passages to really focus on. We watched The Restoration with them, and then had a good discussion about prophets following that. They have a hard time seeing why there would be any need at all for anything other than the Bible. It's a little difficult to talk with them about the Spirit as well. They have a logical approach to everything they do, and very little of it has to do with the Spirit. Having them read and pray and then rely on what they feel is going to take some time. In the meantime, we're doing our best to help them see that a conversion consists of both the logical and the spiritual.

Sorry this isn't too horribly long. Other than that this week we had a meeting with all the zone and district leaders. The face of the mission has changed a lot lately, and a lot of those missionaries haven't been out for too long. It's really cool to see though, because the mission is the best that I've ever seen it. President Summerhays is focusing on making this a complete "Preach My Gospel" mission, and we're seeing the benefits of that. The Lord's hand is so very evident in this work, and I'm very grateful to be apart of it.

I hope you all have a great week and know that I love you!

Elder Kade Bartschi