Happy, Sad, Happy, Life Stinks, Happy Again

Everything at the start of the week just wasn’t going very well.  But, at our district meeting President came and I and my companion had interviews.  After those interviews he came out with us to our appointments for the day and then that night me and my companion talked a lot.  We have completely changed our missions.  We were both companions with the most successful missionaries in the mission and we got to talking about everything because we were doing below-par work.  I can tell you now that my mission has completely changed because of one scripture, Matthew 10:39, is my new favorite scripture.  It has had the most impact on me so far in my life.  And I applied it.  The past two weeks we had found a total of 0 new investigators and this week in 4 days we found 11.  All because I changed my attitude about everything.  We are working harder than I have ever worked in my life and it brings so much happiness.  
 

I told president about what happened the week before and I he told me to try and look at it differently and see what God is trying to tell me.  It made me feel weird because the people were being really rude, but, he has a point.  I've studied a lot about finding faith in Christ, and it is still a work in progress, but I have experienced the rewards of at least putting forth my effort.  

Also, one of my favorite things to hear and read about is people giving thanks to God! It says in DC 46:32 and DC 59:7 that we need to always give thanks to God for our blessings.  And I always think of Captain Moroni when I think about people giving thanks in Alma 48:11-13 it talks about the reason why he was such a great man of God and it's because he gave thanks continually for all the blessings that he had! We need to acknowledge that all good things come from God and when we don’t give thanks to Him for them, he might take them away because WE take them for granted.  

Everything is looking up, I received an answer to my prayers last week, I saw I miracle happen and I feel happy.  I love you guys and hope that everything is going okay, and mom don’t worry about my plaque, it's okay.  

Love you all!

 

This week has been a pretty rough week in terms of pretty much everything in missionary work.  We have a couple of investigators that can get baptized at any given time, they just need to come to church and they make up the excuse of I need to work! It'€™s frustrating because they are putting off their salvation.  I have gotten insulted more than I ever have been on mission in the last week alone, all on my language ability.   It's annoying because I have people tell me that I'm amazing at the language and then people that say I canno€™t understand you because you are American and some that say speak English because I can'€™t understand a thing that you just said.  But, you know, everything is a test, it's all for a reason, I haven't quite figured out the reason yet so that's going to be an interesting journey.  This week has just been really dull; I didn'€™t have a lot of spiritual experiences or uplifting experiences, probably because I wasn'€™t looking for a lot of them.  Never do that! It is a bad idea ha ha, you will regret it.  I think it all comes down to patience and finding Christ in your life.  If you are ever going through a rough time, just remember the Savior has been there.  No matter how bad you feel or how long it takes or how immovable that mountain of a trial is, he's always going to be there. You might ask hundreds of times before you receive your answer or your peacefulness, but there's a reason and a blessing.  3 Nephi 14:7-8 has been on my mind constantly the past couple of days.  I feel like it has a lot of meaning towards the atonement as well.  It just takes time.  I need to learn that lesson.  But one thing I do know that is true, with all of my heart and mind, is that he will answer your call.  I know it'€™s hard, believe me, but just show forth your faith by taking action, with the intent to act upon the answer you receive or change the behavior you had before to become more like Christ.  It works. 


We moved into the sisters apartment! ha ha

Well, this week was probably  the most up and down week that i have had! This week was transfers week and so i got my new stud companion.  This week has been super different because we didnt get the chance to meet with a lot of our investigators.  Its also been really hard and stressful because the entire ward is riding on me right now and all of the members are dumping on me.  But, i know that with stress comes growth, and from growth, we can become closer to the Savior through his grace! We didnt have a lot of new things happen this week but there has definitely been a lot of maturing on my part because for the next couple of weeks everything is on me because i know this ward and area.  i did read something in preach my gospel that really stuck out to me! It says that no one can know about spiritual truths without prayer.  It is super true, through prayer is how we receive a lot of the confirmations of the truths about the gospel from God.  When it's from the spirit, it's from God and if it's from God no one can deny it.  Alma 26:22 says that through prayer and repentance we can find out about the mysteries of God that no other man knoweth.  Alma 7:23 says ask the Lord for whatsoever thing ye stand in need both temporal and spiritual and it will be given to you through faith on the Lord Jesus Christ.  No matter what you can always go to God for help and he will help you, that's a promise from prophets of God! and from every missionary in the world.  I hope everything you do shows love for Christ! i dont mean that super literally but just remember we are trying to become more like the Savior in this life and we cant do that without his grace