Week 82

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO THE MOST FANTASTIC PARENTS IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD!!!! HURRAH

Jan 13, 2014 at 9:58 AM

I repeat . . .

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO THE MOST FANTASTIC PARENTS IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD!!!! HURRAH :)

Hello family,

Crazy to think that y'all (mom and dad) have been married for 25 big ones. That's intense.  I hope you have a wonderful time in Salt Lake City.  Are the kings playing the Jazz?? Tee hee. 

Anyways, in regards to letters and such, I did receive the package, I also got at least 2 from Grandma, a card from the Burton's, one from  Uncle Dan and Aunt Zuleica and one from Rachel, I also got 80 and I think any earlier ones from mom.  Let's see, what else. 

This past week was a really good week.  We had a couple investigators at church; one there for the first time with her 2 granddaughters and they had an amazing experience.  It was awesome! :)  We had a really good lesson in Gospel Principles on Baptism, and she had some great fellowship.  Last night, we received a text from her that said, and I quote "I just wanted to take some time to say THANK YOU I truly did enjoy the service.  And I do look forward to learning more"  We're so excited.  She told us last lesson that she already believes Joseph Smith was a prophet, but we're going to help to make sure that she has a spiritual witness from the Holy Ghost, something that is sooo important :)  Regardless though, we're excited! :) 

We are also teaching some other fantastic individuals.  The Lord is truly blessing us.  Don't get me wrong, we are definitely having some trials, but we continue pressing forward knowing that the Lord will bless us if we but have faith.  A few of our investigators that were progressing the most are kind of dropping off the face of the earth, and/or slipping.  One of them is basically avoiding us even though he told us he knew the Book of Mormon is true and is the word of God.  Another one is still hopefully going to be baptized soon, but not as soon as we had hoped.  We were planning on doing it on the 25 of January, but they didn't come to church again yesterday, which was disappointing.  It's a part member family with the 9 year old son, so church is something that is so crucial in this young  man's conversion.  Probably, the most important piece at this point besides consistent family prayer and scripture study and Family Home Evening's at home.

We're still optimistic . . . but striving to make sure that we are using the Lord's precious time appropriately and effectively. 

We also had another amazing experience last week.  Something that I have felt we need to do since I've arrived here in Hope Mills is track down the millions of unknown Less Active members that are on the roster, but it hasn't been until this transfer that we are finally buckling down and doing it.  With that, we have seen some really good things happen even though we are just beginning.  When Elder Bagley was putting the LA names in the GPS this one name jumped out at him, so he wrote it in his planner.  A few days later, we had an appointment fall through or something, so we were visiting less actives in a particular area; at this point, Elder Bagley told me about this individual that jumped out at him and felt that we should go visit him; we didn't have a ton of time, especially since the certain individual didn't quite live where we were currently working, but we decided to go and visit this one individual before we had to get to our next appointment. We go down there and find them home. (First one that day, btw).  He invites us in because it was really cold and we just chat in the entryway.  But at this point, we learn that he is a Return Missionary!!!! yep, and Less active. :(  Have I ever told you that this above most anything else is what breaks my heart most as a missionary.  I just look at them and think, how?!? How could you :( How could you go around for 2 years personally representing Jesus Christ and then leave and become the very person that for 2 years you were striving to help?? Another side note, dad, we did get pretty cold on Tuesday, it got down to about 9 or 10 degrees.  Needless to say, I enjoyed it because it actually felt like winter.  But back to the story, we also meet his wife and 5 year old son.  His wife is not a member (which, btw, is the number 1 reason for Return Missionaries going less active).  But she was super nice, and we set up an appointment for yesterday.  Yesterday, we went there with the Elders Quorum President, and it went really well.  Long, but well.  And she agreed to seriously investigate this.  She has never been to church before because she used to utterly refuse, but after some difficulties in their relationship I think, she softened up a little, and now has agreed to attend with him sometime.  She also hasn't read the Book of Mormon. And something I love about what I do as a full-time representative of Jesus Christ is how I can guarantee anyone that if they will simply put in the effort to diligently seek as Nephi says, the power of the Holy Ghost will unveil the mysteries of God to them.  I can put full stock in that truth.  I never have to worry about how maybe the Holy Ghost won't pull through this time, or what if God has changed his mind, and I love how I don't have to be the one to prove it to them, or convince them, or empirically defend my position and win an argument.  I just have to bear testimony of truth, and do everything I can to persuade them to see and feel for themselves.  It's incredible.  We're really excited.  And the LA return missionary still has a strong testimony and knows it's all true.  He volunteered to say the prayer at the end.  He definitely wants this for his family.  Always follow the spirit.

We have zone conferences once a quarter usually.  We have Zone leader Training Meeting once a month, and the other weeks are District Meetings and we travel to each District in the zone once a transfer to visit their district meeting.  There are still a lot of sister missionaries coming in. Ratio-wise...I don't know. 

Other than that, this week is going to blow by.  We have a deep clean tomorrow and then on Friday, we're going to be in another area to Blitz it. (which means that we have 2 sets of Elders working in that area that day.  Each of us will go with one of them.  It's for training purposes)  We're excited though, but we just don't have enough time to do all we need to do. 

I love working with the members.  We have a lot of great ones here.

Other than that, again, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY! I LOVE Y'ALL SO MUCH!

Not much else to say.  Click mouse for replay.

Love,

Elder Patty