Week 33; NFL Draft 🏈

Photo Album: https://photos.app.goo.gl/QuW5JQQJL6emqhb68 We had the NFL Draft this weekend in Pittsburgh and it was wild. Since we are the Northside Elders we are in the deep end of it all. All the roads, major highways, and freeways were completely closed off to go to downtown. There were hundreds of thousands of people flooding downtown, specifically the areas near Point Park and the Steelers Stadium. Everywhere else was pretty normal and wasn't that busy. It was definitely hard to find people in the midst of it all since most of them were tourists. After church on sunday I had the amazing opportunity to be a groomsmen with the AP's at one of their friend's wedding. All I can say is what an experience. It was all black people and we were the only groomsmen, sticking out like a sore thumb lol. Pictures coming soon... This week was slow since we weren't able to be in our area that much due to some blitz's and the draft. Up until friday we had around 5 finds for the week. On Saturday that changed. We found 6 people that day. The first lady was named Maryanne who wants to come next week and meet with us. The second lady was Amanda, she sat down with us on her porch and we talked about being unified in the faith and how we follow the same pattern as Christ's church anciently. She wants to meet with us and come to church. We had a 30 minute block near the church in this neighborhood before dinner where we found 3 people. The first was Shantal who wants to read from the Book of Mormon and learn more. The second was Cheree, she wants to learn more about the plan of salvation and work towards baptism! The 3rd was Shay, elect family, she is looking for a church and wants to come to ours. We talked about growing faith and gave her a pamphlet to read before we meet with her on Tuesday to talk more. She mentioned how her and her kids all want to be baptized. Eternal family. We then set up a return appointment with one of our friends for later this week to start teaching him more. On Thursday we had an exchange with the Zone Leaders and I was with Elder Bylund again. I was on Pitt campus in Oakland and it was a funny day. It was fun to be back on campus like when I was on Penn State. We went around this park and got free redbulls and probably around 30 people came up to us and said that we can't drink caffeine. It's crazy how little people know about our church and if they do know anything, it's usually wrong, satan is good at what he does. We didn't have any success in finding that day but had some good teaching opportunities. We had a church tour with one of their friends named Ella and her boyfriend. We showed her around the church and the font aswell, she mentioned how she's always wanted to be baptized. So we put her on date for May 10th and she's excited and wants to come to all the YSA activities throughout the week. Elder Bylund was helping me work on asking better questions and being creative in my approaches. I definitely saw improvement that day. Oh how I love being on a campus, it's so fun talking to college kids. On Friday we had an exchange with Southside and I was with Elder Williams again. We just had a full day of finding, no lessons. The one lesson we had over zoom ended up ghosting us. We found this cool lady named Artica, she wasn't really interested at first but as I talked with her she warmed up to it and is coming to church next week and is meeting with us. We also found this guy named Carl who is so awesome. He's taking care of his mom full time and is going through a lot. We discussed his smoking addiction and he wants to work through that. We talked a lot about the book of mormon and how that could bring him strength and peace. He's been reading the copy we gave him and on the app aswell. We met the coolest martial arts guy who doesn't think guys like him deserve god or forgiveness. He's definitely done a lot and doesn't regret it, he showed us his wall full of weapons, it was awesome. He was so nice to us though and praised what we do for the world. It was an awesome day. Alma 29:9 "I know that which the Lord hath commanded me, and I glory in it. I do not glory of myself, but I glory in that which the Lord hath commanded me; yea, and this is my glory, that perhaps I may be an instrument in the hands of God to bring some soul to repentance; and this is my joy." Alma knew exactly where his confidence came from, and it wasn’t his resume. He says "I glory in it", the "it" being what the Lord commanded him. Not his past as a chief judge, not his missionary stats, not even his repentance story. Just the assignment God put in his hands that day. We don’t have to invent our worth. Alma doesn’t glory of himself. In a world that tells us to build a personal brand, Alma opted out. His identity was tied to obedience, not achievement. That’s freeing because commands from God don’t depend on our mood, talent, or follower count. You can wake up and "glory" simply because you’re trying to do what He asked today. Joy is found in being an instrument, not the musician. Alma’s glory and joy were the same thing: "that perhaps I may be an instrument in the hands of God to bring some soul to repentance." Notice the word "perhaps". He didn’t demand results. He didn’t need to see the whole score. His joy was being available for God to use, even if he never knew the outcome. You don’t need to be impressive. You just need to be instrumental. When we stop trying to get glory from ourselves and start finding glory in what He’s asked us to do, we end up with the same thing Alma did: joy. Not the hype kind, but the deep kind that comes from knowing you’re in God’s hands, being used for His work. With Love, Elder Batman