This week was great mixed with a little bad :(
So
Monday started off great! We taught Jamarus the first half of the plan
of salvation and on Wednesday we taught him the rest of the lesson. He
is progressing so well and he is very anxious to get baptized! This past
Friday our Ward Mission Leader told us that Jamarus texted him. He
asked him "Will I ever get an answer? I come to church and I feel good. I
read and I feel good. But whenever I stop I always feel bad again." So
we got to explain more about the Gift of te Holy Ghost and the influence
of the Holy Ghost. He is super excited to get the Gift of the Holy
Ghost. We hope that he will continue to rub off on his family so they
can believe in God too.
We met with a less active guy this week, Gary. He
said that one of his long time friends called him and as they were
talking Gary related to him that he was having a rough time. His friend
told him to go out and serve others. When we serve others we will
receive greater happiness. Gary said that he will try and serve more
throughout this difficult time in his life. He has severe health
problems but he is still willing to try to help others.
We were on exchanges this week and I was with Elder
Johnson in his area. We were contacting and we talked to this guy named
Greg. It was a great experience. Greg played football for Utah State and
he has been around LDS people/religious people all of his life. He has
chosen to distance himself from religion because of the conduct of the
people that he grew up with. As we talked with him we asked him what his
outlook on life was. Then we shared what ours is. We were just regular
people talking with him, and that is what people need. They need what we
have, but sometimes we try to give it in a way that they don't need it.
If we talk to them like regular people they will open up and give us
the opportunity to bring more light into their lives. As we finished the
conversation he said,"I'm not interested now but things change." We
hope that he will continue to have good experiences with members of the
church and choose to follow Christ!!!
This past week I realize how different I'm seeing
missionary work. How different I'm seeing how people need to change, and
my role in that change. I feel more effective when I'm contacting and
talking to people. I think, "Its taken me this long to figure this out?"
I'm so excited to be able to continue to learn and help people! We are
trying hard to find more people to teach!
On that note, our training for Zone Training went
really well. We did our training portion and there was a lot of good
conversation regarding 'Finding'. for the last 30 minutes we broke up
into groups and practiced contacting. We also had them video themselves
and then they can replay and see what they need to work on. It seemed to
go very well! We have a prize for the companionship that gets the most
'Contacts' in the week!
We had a really good lesson with Armour this week.
We taught him the plan of salvation and he had some really good
questions. He didn't come to church this week but hopefully he will come
next week :(
So for the bad part: Saturday we had service planned
for one of our potential investigators. He cancelled. So we got to help
our sisters in this zone wide project. The community that makes up the
Sisters Missionaries ward only allows garage sales 2 times a year. This
Saturday was one of those days. So the ward offers a pickup of goods
that people would like to donate. The whole zone blitzed the area and we
handed out flyers that told them the info about donating their extra
items after their garage sale. Well that took 3 hours, a lot longer than
expected. then we had lunch and went to a birthday party for a 3 year
old of one of the families in our ward. We then had to do some stuff at
the office with the assistants to prepare for the upcoming transfer.
Later, we were trying to visit people and no one was home! The worst
part was having to talk to some missionaries about being obedient. That
last part was really stressful! So that was pretty much our Saturday:)
To non missionaries that doesn't sound like too bad of a day but it just
seemed like we didn't get to do much work in our area. But I will be
grateful!!! That night I got a letter. In the letter the last portion
included a testimony. Paraphrasing it said "choose to be happy, because
this is a gospel of happiness. This work is a work of happiness and we
cant do it unless we are happy. So you better be happy Elder!"
That helped a lot! :)
Well I think that's all for this week! I love you all!
Love,
Elder John
"In
the agonizing atoning process, Jesus let his will be "swallowed up in
the will of the Father". As sovereigns, choosing to yield to the highest
Sovereign is our highest act of choice. It is the only surrender which
is also a victory! The putting off of the natural man makes possible the
putting on of the whole Armour of god, which would not fully fit
before" - Neal A. Maxwell
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