Miracle Month

Dear Friends and Family,

I'm a day late this week because of Veterans Day yesterday. While I'm on the topic I want to sincerely thank all of my friends and family who have served our country defending our freedom. In particular my Dad who has been a great strength in my life and I'm so grateful to be called his son. If any of you forgot to thank those people you know who have served in the military I urge you to take a moment to do it today. They have sacrificed more than we know to stand up for all of us and allow us to have the lives that we do.

This week has been so great! In zone conference we set a goal to make this month a Miracle Month. Our God is a God of Miracles, but we only obtain anything through faith. Anyone that understands faith knows that it requires effort. Ether 12:12. Faith is a requirement for Miracles. Throughout this chapter is states over and over that none of the scriptures would have been fulfilled without this faith. In verse 27 we all know that if we humble ourselves and come to God in faith he will make our weaknesses into strengths. The biggest thing that I took away from Zone Conference is that I can teach people and "Give them a Fish" over and over. But until we learn how to fish we will be as it says in James 1:22 "...hearers only, deceiving your own selves." We are striving to teach this to our investigators and less-actives alike and it has been very effective. I think the principle that i think of is best described by a quote I heard at the MTC "The study of doctrines will do more to change behavior than the study of behavior will ever do." I wish I knew who said it.

The work here is going SO well. We have two new investigators just from this last week! The Lord is working in the hearts of men all around us. One in particular is a young man just older than me named Manuel. He has been in the Army for four years and when he deployed to Afghanistan one of his comrades gave him a book. You'll never guess which one! (It was a Book of Mormon *in case my blonde mother needs to read through this Quickly(LOVE YOU MOM, I miss our laughs)) So he's had this book for four years. Now he is going to school and taking a world religion class where he has a final project to either write a paper on religion or investigate a religion to find out more about them. This may be taken as coincidence but I know that the Lord does work by small and simple means and those that are willing and have faith to ask are blessed. We made it very plain that we are Missionaries and as such we Will be inviting him to make commitments and exercise faith in the things that we teach him and he is progressing so well. The Lord is great and I'm so grateful to be able to be part of this great work!

I hope that all of you are doing well! I'm glad to hear that a lot of you are and thank you for your letters and your support. I look forward to this next week and can't wait to see how it turns out for all of us. Pray for Miracles exercise Faith, and the Lord promises that you will see them.

Love, 

Elder McGarry