Elder Philip Bredsguard Testifies of Jesus Christ!: October 2, 2017, "The Faith of Nephi"

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TRANSFERS: I'm getting transferred :( I will miss Great Falls. I have really enjoyed my time here, I love love the people that are here. I have met so many wonderful Stake leaders, ward and branch members, and those with have taught and taught with. I am getting doubled into Kalispell with Elder Wadsworth who is just being made a Zone Leader. It's the prettiest part of the mission for sure, and that is where Nyla and Charlie Remington are from!! Haha little secret I have always known I was going to serve there I just never knew when.

It's going to snow today!! Woo hoo! This has been a great week, we have been really using Facebook in our teaching (don't worry I thought it was weird too, but the Prophet and Apostles are truly inspired!) It has been helping so many people we are teaching as we help them on their journey as we and members in a group chat continue to edify each other.

"The Faith of Nephi"

Just this morning I was reading in the very beginning of the Book of Mormon, and I got thinking and pondering on why Nephi had so much more faith than Laman and Lemuel? They were raised in the same city, with the same environment, with the same mother and father. So what is lacking?

After their second attempt to retrieve the brass plates from Laban, Laman and Lemuel begin to beat Sam and Nephi with a rod. An angel appears to all of them and says "Why do ye smite your younger brother with a rod? Know ye not that the Lord hath chosen him to be a ruler over you, and this because of your iniquities?" (1)

That is it! Laman and Lemuel didn't have the same amount of faith as Nephi because of their iniquities! They loved the world and its pleasure and power more than God and his glory and never evading love. And we all know how they ended up in the end of this story, miserable. Same with their posterity that followed them.

This has opened my eyes to more fully understand the first and greatest commandment. Jesus said, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment." (2)

If you desire more faith, love God. If you desire peace, love God. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved." (3) In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

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