Week 45: Keep Going!

 May 4, 2015

Hey everyone!

Although this past week did not necessarily go quite how I expected it to, it was still good nonetheless. I hope you all know that I appreciate everything that any of you have done for me. There are a lot of people I credit in helping me to this point. And I am really grateful for that help that I've received because now I am able to help a lot of people in the calling I am now apart of!

This week has been frustrating, happy, hard, and amazing, all at once! I don't think I have ever been stretched so much in my life. We have had some appointment cancellations and flaky potential investigators, yet we've also seen some really wonderful things as well.

I'll talk mostly about the best things that happened because they just simply make me happy! Dan and Pat have not slowed down in terms of the Gospel. Last Sunday (the day I was sick), Dan received the Aaronic Priesthood. Our bishop is also prepping them to go to the temple to do baptisms for the dead. The really neat thing is that we might get to go with them! They've both received callings and are pretty much fully integrated into the ward. They have a new convert "fire" that is burning really bright.

Another awesome thing was in finding a new investigator. This woman was "found" by her neighbors, a member family in one of our wards. She took the lessons a long time ago, but is now willing to retake them from us! The lesson was one of those where everything you say feels inspired. You really feel like the things you are saying aren't your words, but the Lord's. We invited her to be baptized. The Spirit was very strong, and I felt like she was going to say yes, but then her phone rang. Instead of saying yes, she said she'd think and pray about it. Just goes to show you how hard Satan works to distract people from making the right decisions. I'm almost positive she would have said yes without that phone call.

The difficulty of being a missionary comes from not looking at the big picture. You may have a day where everything appointment cancels and where no one is opening up their doors, or where no one is even home. For me,
with all my anxieties and worries, it is very easy for me to beat up on myself. But that's not really fair, is it? Just because things aren't always the way you want them to be doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong. As long as you work hard and do everything you're supposed to, the Lord will honor His promises to you--no matter what the situation is.

That was the Lord's lesson of the week to me; just keep going!

I hope you all have a fantastic week! If you have anytime to write, I'd love to hear from you!

Love,

Elder Jones