Email: March 26, 2012

Hello Family!

So only Grandma has gotten back to me on the challenge I left with
everyone last week.  It is really not that hard and it only takes 5 to
10 minutes to create a profile and tell about yourself.  It is the
easiest way to share the gospel right now.  I will keep bugging
everyone about it until you do it!  I have a few more challenges that
I would like to extend but I can't until you complete this one!
This past week has been a pretty good one.  We did our twelve hours of
tracting and ended up finding 6 new investigators.  I would say that 5
of them are money but the other one already flaked on an appointment
with him so kinda stunk.  We are focusing more on putting the effort
into those who are showing any kind of effort to working towards being
baptized.  Since we have been doing that we have been finding more
people it seems.  We actually found a family on Saturday while we were
out tracting and they were only visiting someone, they didn't even
live there.  Fortunately they live in our area so we set up a time to
come back and see them this week.  They are recently married and have
a four month old little boy named Braxton.  He is a cutie!
We also had interviews with President Young this week.  It went pretty
well.  I have realized how much politics are involved with being in
leadership and I hope that I never get called into it!  I like being a
plain missionary and just sharing the gospel.  IT's awesome!  We also
found out that Elder Ludlow is leaving in about a week at the end of
this transfer.  So I will be getting a new companion which will be
interesting.  It sucks when you finally get comfortable teaching with
someone and figuring out the best way to do things, you get a new one!
Sister Young talked to us at interviews and she shared a lot about how
you need to laugh everyday and how much laughter helps you work
better.  It is so true!  We have had several people just attack us
when we were out knocking doors this past week and if we couldn't
laugh about it then it could just ruin us and make us not be able to
work.
I finished the Book of Mormon this past week again and started it
over.  I love reading through Moroni's words at the end when he is
talking to anyone who reads the book and exhorts, or strongly urges,
them to read the words and find out for themselves.  We had a
discussion with a man yesterday who had taken everything that he had
heard from anyone about the Book of Mormon and based his knowledge of
it on that.  We asked if he had ever read it and he said he didn't
need to because he knows from other people what it is.  We explained
what it was and he didn't believe us because of what others said to
him.  If everyone would take that promise and exercise a particle of
faith and experiment on the word, they would receive an answer.  It's
that simple.  People have been so easily blinded by Satan.  Read Alma
48:17-19 and even vs 20.  But if we could all be like those men, Satan
would have no power over our hearts.  They were so firm in their faith
and testimony that the adversary's influence wasn't even a temptation
for them anymore.
Anyway, I would exhort you to strive to be like these men.  They were
an incredible example to us of how we should live our lives.  This
gospel is true.  Our savior Jesus Christ lives and guides the church
through his modern day prophet, Thomas S. Monson.  I know that this is
true.  I love you all.

Love,
Elder Erickson