Santo

Sorry I didn't get a chance to email yesterday, things have been a little hectic.  The internet was down in Malekula.

Well, I'm in Santo for a mission tour.  Elder Pearson of the Area Presidency is coming, and the Malekula district is here for his visit.  This is the first time I've been in Santo, and I like the island.  It's clean, and doesn't have too many people.  It's all pretty nice.  I'm also giving a talk at the mission tour...!  I thought we were coming here for zone conference, but apparently that's in two weeks.  We go back to Malekula on Saturday (Friday your time), then we're just coming back to Santo a week later.  My talk only has to be five minutes, but I didn't know it would be in front of a General Authority, I'll have to go double check my talk and I probably should write it out, instead of just having a couple scriptures written down and winging it (just kidding, but I do need to go over it again)!

This week we were teaching an investigator about faith, and we taught him that in order for faith to work, you needed an action to go with it.  I used an example of prayer.  Faith that prayers are heard by God needs to be backed by actually praying to God.  If you don't pray, but believe God hears prayers, that isn't faith, just belief.  You need to act upon your belief to make it faith.  That was just an example to help him learn what faith is.  I plan on sharing that in my talk, which is on 'faith without works is dead', which is true, because without works, or actions, faith is not faith, only belief.

Elder Van Wagenen