August 1, 2011

Hey fam! Hope all is well. Things here are great! The weather is HOT and has been kind of humid the past couple days. This past weekend was great! We have struggled to find new investigators for the past 6-7 weeks and we found five this weekend! It was wonderful. I feel so confident in The message that we have. I know it is for every single person that we see. I did a lot of thinking to why we werent finding people to teach and I realized I wasnt doing my part and taking every single opportunity to teach. So this past week we honestly were teaching everyone. It was the best!! This work is incredible. I love it more every day.

I gave a talk in church on Sunday. The Bishop asked me thursday night to give the talk in Sacrement so I didnt have much time to prepare. The person who was going to talk went out of town so I was grateful he had the confidence to ask me. I gave it on Faith. I learned a lot as I prepared for the talk. I was really praying for understanding on what I needed to talk about. There are so many directions to go with the topic of Faith. I felt good about talking about the importance of this principle in our lives and how we develope faith. As I was studying I found a scripture in D&C 8:10. The Lord told the Prophet Joseph Smith that without faith he could do nothing. That is how important faith is in our lives. I have realized that on my mission. Faith really is a principle of power and most important Action. I talked about all we need to have is desire. If we have even a little desire we need to let that work in us enough to act on that desire until it starts to grow into faith. Alma 32:27. This is huge! Desire is such an important aspect. It has to be a true desire though. Then I finished by reading about king lamoni's father and the desire that he had to change his life to come to know the Lord. Alma 22:15-17. I Know thatr faith is vital to having a successful life. I have seen so many people who have little or no faith who are so unhappy. On the flip side I have seen those with great faith in the Lord and they are confident and happy. Faith in the Jesus Christ leads us to do the works of righteousness. It is such and awesome thing to study.

I know this work is the Lords. I know the message that we share is His. I am grateful for the Gospel and my mission. We are having a lot of great experiences as we find and talk to people. Elder Barrus is great and I am learning a lot from him. Thanks for all that you guys do! I am going to Ventura tonight because we have Zone Leaders council tomorrow. I am excited. I love you guys tons!

Love Elder Bills