How to love...

Love is the best. Everyone wants to feel loved. Everyone wants to feel like they belong. I feel so much love for the people in Oklahoma. Some of the craziest people I have ever met, but by far the kindest and most loving people I have ever met. So genuine. I love it out here, I really can't imagine living anywhere else again, but then again, I am not down for the humidity, heat and mosquitoes and bed bugs. I had no idea bed bugs were real until I came to Oklahoma.

This past week was busy. We had transfers on wednesday so we were down in the city all day and then we did a 24 hour exchange in enid with those elders because they had baptismal interviews. We got home Friday evening and had a ward party for all of our investigators and ward members. Saturday morning we had to travel down to Edmond to meet the assistants and give them some stuff and also get my allergy meds from the Orgills, so of course we had breakfast with them. ;) Then we came back and we were home the rest of the weekend. So much traveling, I am sick of being in a truck. With all the traveling we do, and as little time that is spent in our area, its amazing how much the grace of God makes up for it. We have two baptisms set for next week with Gail and Clifton. Two HUGE miracles, (love those two) and then about 4 more within the end of the month. Its amazing to see how the Lord can direct us to people who want to follow Christ more exactly, and who want to build stronger faith in the Lord. The more time I spend on my mission, the more I realize how much we depend on God in all we do. Each night when I pray and account, I realize how weak of a missionary I am and how many mistakes I make during a day. The beauty of the Gospel is that an Atonement was made to strengthen our weaknesses and heal our sinful natures.

I have come to realize how central the Atonement of Jesus Christ is to all living intelligences that God has ever created. Anything else is just an appendage of the Atonement. The truth that Christ descended, set an example, suffered, died, rose again, and then ascended as a glorified resurrected being means more to our life than we can mortally comprehend. As we come to understand the cleansing, empowering, consoling and exalting powers of the Atonement, our desire to "do god continually" will shoot up dramatically. I have come to gain a testimony of this truth: The Restored Gospel not only was the means by which Christ restored His church, but much more importantly, it was the means by which He was able to restore sacred and pertinent truths about His atoning sacrifice and the means by which we can now learn more about the atonement at an accelerated rate than ever before. The ONLY thing we are doing when we invite others to read the Book of Mormon and to learn about the Restored Church of Jesus Christ, is inviting them to learn more than they could have ever imagined about what the Atonement of Jesus Christ means for their lives specifically. In other words, when we invite others to learn about Joseph Smith the Book of Mormon etc..., we are ONLY showing our love for them and offering them a greater opportunity to feel, deeper than ever, of the Saviors infinite love for them. Why wouldn't we want to do that? 

Yall are great, I love all your emails and letters. I miss all of you so much!! Keep on doing good. Keep on doing the little things. I can't tell you how many people i have seen get lost because they get distracted and stop reading the scriptures, praying and going to church. It's too easy...

Take care.

Elder Dallin Cutler

Fixin' to tell yall' bout the deal.

Classic Oklahoma talk, let me tell ya. Life is so good. God is so good to us all. Trials are the greatest, when the foundation of Faith in Christ is embedded in our hearts. This past transfer was the hardest of my mission. Constantly getting dropped, doors slammed, and just trouble with a lot of people who just want to be annoying to missionaries, but, I feel like i have learned the most on my mission during this trial. I have come to appreciate the simplicity of the Gospel. Fasting, prayer and humility with an eye single to the glory of God will qualify anyone for the work that God has for that person. It will allow us to exercise faith unto repentance so that we can keep covenants and receive and be sanctified by the reception of the Holy Ghost.

But as for the good news, me and Elder White get ANOTHER transfer together!! We were pumped!!! That makes about 4.5 months together 24/7. We aren't complaining, its been a bro night in a spiritual way the whole time ;). He has been in Stillwater for 3 transfers and I have been in Stillwater for 2 and we get another one now. We are excited. We have probably one of the youngest zones in the mission. Everyone in our zone is training a new missionary except one companionship. We have a total of about 24-26 missionaries in our zone. Young blood is the best. So much faith and excitement. We are excited to learn from these new missionaries. Stillwater is blowing up!! School is starting so everyone and their moms are here in Stillwater. It just so happens that our institute of religion is SURROUNDED by sororities. Nice try nick. Stillwater is one crazy place. Gotta love it. :)

So one cool experience that we got to have this week was to teach one of our investigators in a jail cell. It was pretty legit to see that the Spirit can be anywhere. Probably the first time in the history of Oklahoma Mission that we had a member present lesson in a jail with an inmate. First for everything right? 

Last story is about a guy named Clifton. He is one of our good friends out here. We met him at the beginning of last transfer and have been teaching him ever since. He is such a cool guy. Total and complete change about him and you can physically see the change in his life. He has done some really difficult things in his life recently to change it and it has really strengthened me to see him doing it because he has relied completely on faith and prayer. It has been a miracle to get to know him and to see how he is affecting our lives and the lives of so many other people. He is planning on getting baptized within the next weeks.

Well i would send pictures, but my camera is out of batteries and batteries cost alot of money, and I am a broke missionary. Stay classy and remember who you are and where you came from. Children of God. WOW! If we only knew....my prayer is that God will continue to teach us patiently so that we will begin to remember what that truly means. :)

Love,

Elder Cutler

Single Eye's

Going to the temple this week was much needed. Revelation is so real. It happens and God will reveal what we need to know in order to continue to repent and grow. It will be very uncomfortable to change when He does reveal it though because there is no growth in the comfort zone and no comfort in the growth zone.

Well this week I was humbled again. I have been such a terrible missionary. My attitude has been wrong. My vision has been eschewed. I was doing things for the wrong reasons, and God loved me enough to show me my weaknesses. It hurt when I first recognized it, but I am so glad it happened. It all clicked. What does it mean to keep an eye single glory to God? If we can all master that mindset, our problems will seem trivial compared to the glory that awaits us.

The Lord taught me I needed to work harder and to get over myself again and get to work for His glory and His alone. These people are important. They are His children and they have the ability to choose. However, that doesn't give me an excuse to not work hard. The past two weeks have been really really rough as it relates to missionary work. I learned what it means to struggle in the Spirit and to wrestle with the Lord. It is a struggle to overcome your natural man tendencies to doubt, to have a short term perspective and to be selfish, "but the Spirit indeed is willing". We all know that God lives and that He will never leave us "comfortless" but how do we "KNOW" it? It is a constant battle and struggle to keep our faith high and to remember the promises God has made us if we endure well. That has been on my mind. Faith in Christ will literally solve any problem that we experience in this lifetime, but ONLY if we rememeber the promises that He has made to us if we have faith in Him. That is why it is so important to do the little things and read our scriptures to bring us to "a remembrance" constantly.

This week was great though. Hard but great. We are teaching two Muslims who just moved from Iran. They have become our best friends haha it is so hard to communicate with them. They are reading a Farsi Book of Mormon and they showed up at church. Legit. We also had so many miracles happen at Church and beforehand. The Lord always provides. There are so many people out there who are ready to turn to God. I truly love the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I know He died and rose from the grave 3 days later so that we could all LIVE. What greater promise is there? What else matters? Always remember...

I love yall. Be happy and do what God wants, there's no reason to not to :)

Elder Dallin Cutler

p.s this picture is with Elder Roundy and Elder Prewitt. I went on an exchange up in Blackwell, Oklahoma. Good times. 

service opportunity in blackwell with e roundy my man

blackwell exchange 

some girls in blackwell made us a cake while we were there for #TheFlood

applesauce and water. my diet.