Birthdays, Engagements and "the Love of God"

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOOT! I love you so much!

Wow!!! Big news! Congratulations Spencer on getting engaged and stuff! That's pretty exciting! I hope you have a wonderful engagement and wedding and stuff! I'll be here just doin' my thang! I have never really had a wedding this close to me before... Am I supposed to do something special? I know if I were there I would without a doubt be the best man (right? ;) ) and give a toast and a bachelor party and all that, but the date is strategically timed in such a way that I can't really do that. Gomen-nasai!

This week was FANTASTIC! I haven't had this productive of a week in a long time! We found a LOT of new people. We met with almost all of our investigators and we got two new baptismal dates set! One of our Chinese investigators is being a punk and not choosing a date. He is kinda like Shrek. He has a lot of layers that we have to get through! He gets closer every time we meet! We also had the area president come and visit our mission and give an amazing conference. I learned so much and he said so many things that were both validating, praising, and gave me ideas on how to improve further! It was so exciting! He talked a lot about revelation. The coolest experience this week was feeling like I needed to invite a man we had just run into to be baptized on March 5! That was pretty cool! He was really feeling good about it so he said he would be baptized but would decide on a date later. My companion and I were both pretty shocked that everything happened the way it did! This week the scariest thing was almost getting smashed into a concrete wall by a bus while riding my bike! I was a quarter of an inch away from being a very bloody pancake! I know God protected me big time though!

I have been perusing the scriptures recently and I just finished 3 Nephi and 4 Nephi! 4 Nephi is a wonderful little part of the Book of Mormon that manages to squeeze about 300 years into a mere 49 verses. Over the course of which a perfect society thrives and then crashes and burns, thrusting a civilization into the American equivalent of the dark ages! What a crazy chapter/book! But in it there is so much that can be learned! I love verse 15 which says

"And it came to pass that there was no contention in the land, because of the love of God which did dwell in the hearts of the people."

There was no contention, which we learn is actually an influence of the devil (3 Nephi 11:29), in all the land! And that was due to the fact that the love of God did dwell in the hearts of the people. What a wonderful state to be in! Wonderful and yet so difficult to achieve and maintain! If you love God, then it necessarily follows that you love the stuff he loves! Which is you and me and everyone and everything! And what happens? No fighting, no backbiting, no cheating, no stealing, no pride, no selfishness, no lust, no jealousy, in fact what happens is you find yourself, like the wonderful people of God, happier than any other people created by God. That is pretty crazy! I find myself saying that I love God all the time, but only showing through my actions some of the time. I would love to get better at that! 

I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week! 

Elder Siebach

Today was Chinese New Years so of course we took a little trip to China town with some of my favorite people in the mission! You might recognize some faces from the MTC, my fifth transfer and my time in Hachioji!