Elder Kasey Crafts

Dear Friends and Family,

Everything is going great as always!

Transfer assignments came and i'm for-sure staying here for at least another 6 weeks! wahoo!  Our PO box will be the same. This area has really helped me a lot with my spanish. There and tons of amazing people here as well. One thing my companion has suggested to do is buy a small pocket sized dictionary and memorize one page a day. (it was a good idea because my other one was falling apart)  There are about 35 words on each page. If i study and memorize at least 20 of them and use them then by the end of the transfer i should have about 1,000 new words!

We've been teaching alot of great people. One of them is named Joseph. He is the boyfriend of one of the daughters of 1st counselor in the Branch Presidency. He's about 21 years old. He's a really brave guy and in a really tight spot. The daughter wants to marry a member of the church in the temple but really likes him (he doesn't really have a religion.) and his mom really doesn't want him to join the church. (Shes catholic)  He's had missionary discussions before and his mom has hid The Book of Mormon from him so he cant' read. He's in a really tight spot. We are going to start teaching him on Thursday.

Another person we've been teaching is a lady named Guadalupe. She is about 50 years old. We had taught her the first couple of weeks into my mission but stopped seeing her for a while because she didn't want to progress. We went back this last week to see how she was doing and share a message. We talked a little bit more about the Book of Mormon and the bible and how they supported each other. After a while of talking with her and taking alot of time my companion asked her "if God came down right now and told you The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the true church would you change?" She said no. Experiences like that never cease to amaze me. Asking questions like that are really good because it will save alot of time. We could have taught her forever and she wouldn't have ever changed. I've read alot lately about true conversion. Conversion in essence is when your entire attitudes, desires, and behavior changes and become inline with the will of God. As missionaries we asked people to make some pretty big changes in their lives. Its important to keep trying and help them as much as you can but if they just don't have the desire to change then their is nothing we can do about it.

Another great experience we had this week was talking to Fabian. He is an ex-green burrey. ( i really dont know how to spell it.) which is basically the biggest most hardcore thing anyone can do in the armed forces. He is atheist but has a desire to have faith. He has a lot of really interesting questions. He asked us alot of questions about Adam and Eve. While we were talking with him i thought of a question my self. Why did God not just put Adam and Eve on the earth and skip the taking of the fruit part? The next day i found the answer while studying in 2nephi 2. It all comes down to the fact that "man" had to choose to leave the presence of God. Man had to use their agency. Just like Adam and Eve,  God is never going to "kick us out" of His presence. God is always their to help us in all that we do. The times when we feel that God is not there are the time when we refuse to knock and ask for help.

We are all really excited to go to the temple this next Monday! Its about a 5-6 hour drive from Fort HanCock. Temples are a huge blessing!


love you all and i hope you have a great week!

Elder Crafts

Elder Crafts

P.O. Box 2754

Faben, TX   79838