Born of God-- Pres. Benson

Hello Family and Friends!!!

This has been a great week for us! We have an investigator, Abedo, who is ready for baptism on the 14 of this month!! Hopefully his daughter will follow him into the church.  My companions are doing awesome and continue to be good friends and support.

We had a cool experience/  learning experience this week.

On Friday, the 3 of us were walking down a road and passed this 20-ish year old girl on the sidewalk. We said HI but she really didn't respond much, so we kept walking on.  She than starts yelling at us, really me. Saying that she recognizes me from somewhere.  So we turn around to talk more with her. She looks at me and says "Elder Allred, you gave me a Mormon Bible bout 2 months ago, and I've read that every night since then, I like it better then the Genesis Bible." I finally recognized her. She then told me that my ears were super big, but that was ok, she thought they were cute. Well, we set a return appointment and went along our way.  A couple of days later, were in the area again, and she walks up to me and asks for a hug, then runs up and hugs me. Then  she turns to my comps and "hugs" them too. She than exclaimed how she was so excited to meet with me (Her words, not US, but ME) then ran off again.

My comps were really excited to see her and teach her. However, I feel that if "I" invite her to baptism, she'll say yes. Not because she believes its true, but because a cute Elder asked her too.  Conversion NEEDS to be to the gospel, not to the person. I hesitate teaching her because I feel shes more interested in the teacher than in the lesson (Kinda like, why some girls take Indiana Jones history class)  If I had merely went on a mission because a cute girl told me to go, than I would not be as good as a missionary, in fact, I'd be a terrible Missionary.

Our mission is focusing on really CONVERTING our missionaries and investigators. I was talking to a member last night over dinner. He made a remark which prompted me to ask if he was a convert. He looked at me and said, "I was born in the church, and yes I AM a convert" He went on to explain that members are born and baptized into the church, but how many of them are Converted to the church?  How many people today that were baptized at 8 are now Converts to the church?

Often times I think we associate the word "Convert" to a non-member finding the gospel and being baptized. Although we may refer to them as converts, they may not be CONVERTED.  In the Electrical world, to convert a volt, means to change to change a volt and create a completely new volt.  To convert a person in the gospel, the spirit has to make a completely new person.

Pres. Benson has a talk called "Born of God" This talk along with several others are great when talking about conversion. Please listen to it, Its so great! If anyone needs help feeling personal conversion, I can promise you that this talk WILL help.

Thanks for everything!!! I LOVE you ALL!!!

Elder, Spencer D, Allred.