Hey everyone! This last week was a good one! Torrey Pines is a blessed place to be. It was good to Skype the family yesterday. HAPPY MOTHERS DAY! I hope you all enjoyed it as well.
Last Monday we had a Cinco De Mayo party for Family Home Evening. FHE is one of my favorite parts of serving in the YSA. It's so fun! Tonight we are playing Bunko. That'll be sweet! I've never played but I know moms love it, so it should be good.
I went on exchanges to Del Mar Ward on Wednesday with Elder Yancey. That was a whole lot of fun! One of the best parts was visiting with this elderly lady in their ward who lives in a nursing home. She has a pretty bad memory (possible Alzheimer's). It was really cool, but she kept repeating herself over, and over, and OVER! She had like the same 15 things she kept telling us. She asked us where we were from 6 times. Eventually we just started having fun with it and said what we knew she was about to say. The funniest part was right before we left. I shared a message and we did 'eenie meenie' for who would pray, which was me. We got up and walked to the door and she asked, "Can we say a prayer before you leave?" Elder Yancey began to say, "Sister Phillips, we just said one." But I cut him off and said, "We'd love to! Should we do eenie meenie? Eenie, meenie, minee, mo. Oh, Elder Yancey looks like it's you!" And so we said another closing prayer :)
Thursday we had Institute. It was so cool! We learned about the period of time between the Old and New Testaments. Lot's happened during that time! It was really interesting to learn about it. I hadn't studied that period of time in church before.
The highlight of my week was Saturday. Wednesday Elder Wilde (My last comp) called me at night telling me that David, our investigator we taught and dropped, was going to be baptized. I didn't even know he was being taught again! Elder Wilde and I picked up David in TOV. He was homeless and a recovering alcoholic. After teaching him for a while, he disappeared and we later found out he relapsed. (We went out on the streets at night and found him with Brother Birch.) I guess he just showed up sober and said he wanted to be baptized. It was an incredible experience to finally get a baptism! I am so proud of David.
I have a strong testimony of this gospel. Every week we encounter anti Mormon material and repeated rejection. However, this church still stands and will continue to stand. This is Christ's living church on the earth today. It brings us happiness and peace. Because of Jesus Christ and His atonement we can feel peace and comfort when we are in need. I know if we ask for help, our Father will always receive us with love. There is NOTHING we can do to make Him turn His back on us. He gave us the atonement so because we would mess up. Not using the atonement and living with your guilt and shame is like dehydrating in the desert when you have a cooler of fresh, cold water available. We too often say, "I can't be forgiven" or "There's no way". All you have to do is open what is available for you and ENJOY THE PEACE IT BRINGS!
I love you all! Thank you for all the love and support!
Elder Erik Kapp
Picture 1 is David's baptism
Picture 2 is this homeless guy we met and sang songs with.
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