The Iron Rod

Dear Family, This will be a short email since I just emailed you on Saturday. Since then we have been greatly blessed. Our investigators finally came to church! We also started teaching a young couple with 2 little boys. They were investigators 3 years ago but then were dropped by the missionaries. There names are Saul and Sophia. Please pray for them. They are praying to know if Joseph Smith was a prophet and we have a lesson with them tonight with our ward mission leader. We are going to teach them all about the Book of Mormon and why it is so important and invite them to be baptized. Please pray that they will feel the Spirit and feel of the blessings that will come to them from joining the church. A few weeks ago the English elders that cover this area ran into a less-active man that speaks Spanish. His name is Hermano Duran. We taught him and his non-member roommate and then Hermano Duran came to two sessions of General Conference last week. He came to church yesterday for all three hours and loved it and then we taught him last night in a member's home. He is so excited for the Gospel to come back into his life. He has read one chapter of the Book of Mormon every day for the last nine days and said that he will continue to do so for the rest of his life. We taught the Gospel of Christ last night by drawing our own rendition of Lehi's dream. As we talked about the Iron Rod he was excited and bore his testimony about how important daily scripture study is. We then taught him what Elder Golden said about how the primary purpose of reading the scriptures daily is not to learn but rather to be sanctified. It was powerful. I have come to understand that we just can't make it if we don't read the Book of Mormon every single day. We cannot become who the Lord wants and needs us to be without the sanctifying power of that sacred book. 20 Wherefore, ye must press forward with a asteadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of bhope, and a clove of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and dendure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eeternal life. (2 Nephi 31:20) I know that we must continually hold fast to the Iron Rod in order to endure to the end. I know that as we do so we are sanctified, cleansed, and guided. I know that the Book of Mormon is indeed the word of God. I know it to be true and I know that as we press forward through the mists of darkness in our lives ever holding fast to the words of Christ that we will one day reach our ultimate goal and receive eternal life. I love you and am grateful for your prayers. Please pray for Saul and Sophia, Elder Case