look up

First off, I want to share some thoughts from my study this morning.

I was reading in Alma 26. As I came across verse 30, I wrote these thoughts down:

   Ammons words give me strength. They remind me where my focus as a missionary needs to be.

   What great love the people, for their fellow brothers and sisters. They suffered much more than I ever will. All I have sacrificed is my time and a few lazy comforts. They were starved, beaten, chased by mobs, cast into prison, etc. They endured so much more than I have or will, so there is no reason why I cannot handles the work load of my simple mission. I can't let myself get depressed or downtrodden when something doesn't work out the way I hoped. If I press forward with faith like these ancient missionaries did, I know I will see miracles and I will find great joy in bringing save it be a few souls to the knowledge of the restored gospel. I know if I give my all, I will be able to look back at this time and say, "I gave it my all. I did the best I could. I held nothing back." I want to be more dedicated to this work than ever before so that I can be the tool in God's hands to bring a few souls to Him.

   These thoughts stem off of something that my zone leaders talked about this past week during a training. Elder Pineda challenged us all to give our hearts God, to hold nothing back, and to do everything in faith. My goal is to do just that.

We had interviews this past week with the mission president. During the training beforehand, President committed us to triple the number of people we have on baptismal date. The more we have on date, the more that will get baptized. The last two months have be rough for the mission as having the lowest baptism rate in years, but there's an energy and excitement building right now with the new proselyting concept. Sis. Kloepfel and I have been struggling to reach this goal, but we have pushed through with faith and had several successes.

One such success is David and Shelly. David in the same office as one of the members at the small college in town. This member told us about David just before Thanksgiving. David has been looking into the church for a couple of years now. He's read the Book of Mormon a couple of times and has said in a room with multiple people in there that if this book isn't true, nothing is. He has a strong desire for his wife to also learn, and so we've been trying to set up a time to meet with them for two months now (it's been really busy for them over the holidays). A couple weeks ago we became more insistent and stopped by the office a couple of times. We both felt that we needed to start teaching them soon or it might be too late. This week, we did the same thing and he finally found a time when we could teach them. We set to meet them Saturday morning at the office (they wanted the first meeting to be away from their three young rowdy boys). 10AM came and went and they didn't show. We called David to see what was up. Shelly had to take a last minute trip to a nearby town to help a friend. He had been searching his truck for a while to see if he could find our phone number. He told us that as soon as he heard from her he would let us know when we could meet. He, like us, was tired of putting it off and told us he really wanted to meet that day. A few hours passed and he hadn't called back. So we called him. He said she should be home in an hour. She ended up having to take her friend to the hospital for something. Sis. Kloepfel and I started to doubt that we would get to teach them that day, but we kept faith and prayed with all our hearts. Three hours later, about 20 minutes after we prayed that we would hear from him, David called and said she was home and could we meet in an hour. Of course we said yes. So, 9 hours after our scheduled appointment we got to teach them.

David has such a strong desire to know if this really is the right church and Shelly wants to know as well. She is still trying to understand it all, but is willing and wanting to learn. We put them on a goal date and committed them to pray and read. I'm excited to see them progress. David knows it's true, he just has to have enough faith to overcome the doubts. Luckily he has a wonderful resource working with him everyday. I know from that experience, that they need this gospel. The Spirit was urging and directing us to much to not be so. I can't wait to see them go to the temple one day.

Love you all lots! Remember, with enough faith and righteous desire, miracles can happen and the Lord will never lead you astray!

Love,

Sister Cottam