Your letter this week is my favorite letter yet. Hearing of your miracles and recent experiences with the spirit has given me hope that no challenge is so great that faithful servants can't overcome them with the help of the Lord.
1 Nephi 7:12 is one of my favorites as well. I am so amazed and impressed with how many miracles y'all have seen already in the Branch. I also learned from your letter that you truly cannot go wrong when you follow the spirit, even if it seems to be leading you somewhere that might seem uncomfortable. You are a great example to me of following the spirit, Dad. Thank you.
My heart is just so full of love right now, this morning I was nervous about e-mailing you because I didn't know what I would say. In the white handbook it says that we should avoid talking negatively of our areas and companions. The spirit told me that if I wasn't obedient to the laws of the Lord I wouldn't receive the promised blessings He wants to give me. I didn't know how I would be able to stop myself from complaining or talking badly but your email is what did it. There is no reason whatsoever that we can't find, teach and baptize people here in the Broadlands Ward. It might take EVERYTHING we have, it probably will take everything we have, but it will be worth it. I have never prayed so hard in my life than I have this week for myself, for my companion and for this ward. I have come to realize the fruits of our efforts might not show as quickly as we want them to, or as I want them to but NO effort is wasted. This week has been a successful week.
We had Zone meeting this past week and MAN, DID I NEED THAT. We were taught how to be HAPPY missionaries. Everyone who trained us talked about work, the key to missionary work is WORK. Another thing that really hit me was a training that was given on key indicators. In this mission we have a tendency to focus too much on the number and not enough on the people. We were given a whole training on how much the numbers DON'T MATTER. What a refreshing doctrine. At first I thought, "No. Numbers matter a ton! The only reason people say numbers don't matter is because they use it as an excuse to be lazy." So I continued to mull over it and I came to the conclusion that numbers still do matter, but the people matter more. We shouldn't use the numbers to reflect how awesome of a missionary we think are, but we should use them to record the progress of how others are doing at coming closer to the Savior. In the end, we know how hard we worked and how dedicated we are to doing the Lord's work. That's what matters.
We also had some fun times this week. Here are a few. On Friday we do weekly planning, ITS AWESOME! I LOVE LOVE LOVE WEEKLY PLANNING. So in order to make it more enjoyable for Sister C, we put on facials while we planned. Pretty epic. Then on Saturday morning I loaded the dishwasher and we didn't have any dish detergent so I thought dish soap would work just as well. FALSE. A little while later I come back out to the kitchen and the dishwasher is exploding with bubbles. Like everywhere. So I stopped the dishwasher, grabbed my only two bath towels and frantically started collecting the mess of bubbles. It was so fun and my companion and I were laughing the whole time. Needless to say, I have become wiser when it comes to what can and cannot be put in dishwashers. On Friday our dinner appointment said she couldn't be there so she just gave us cash to eat out somewhere. We went to a really good pizza place and had lots of leftovers. On the way out we saw this homeless family, we parked our car, grabbed the leftovers and a book of mormon and went to talk to them. The man had apparently been offered a job here so he moved him, his wife and their three kids out to CO and then they told him the job had already been filled. We talked with him a little bit more and told him about the Book of Mormon, they seemed very thankful. He asked where they church was, we gave him the address and told him services started at 9 and anyone was welcome to come. He said he would be there along with his family. Unfortunately they didn't show up but it was cool being able to help them in any way we could.
We also were able to have our first song practice with the youth. We had ALL of the young men show up and almost all of the young women as well. They were ecstatic about the song and are excited to perform it. The practice went really well and afterwards the young women leader came up to us and thanked us so much. She said that she'd been wanting to do this with the youth since she was put in the organization but just didn't have the confidence to actually do it. We are excited to have the support from the auxiliary leaders! This week we will be speaking at a relief society activity and I am really excited. We share the ward with a an older couple and Sister Hollingsworth will be attending with us. We have several set appointments this week with investigators or potentials so we are pretty happy about that as well. Things are looking up here in Broadlands! I hope you are doing well and that miracles continue to happen in the branch, I pray for you and the family and the branch! LOVE YOU SO MUCH DADDY!
P.S. Thought you would be happy to know that Sister C and I have found comp unity over talking about the farm and some cow stories. It's been really nice to reflect on all the good times at the farm and some of the adventures that we had. I also didn't realize how much I knew about farm animals until she started asking me questions. hahahahaha anyways, love you! Ya taught me well.
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| Apparently this is what Kenz would look like if she were an alien. lol. |
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| Don't worry, these aliens come in Peace! haha. |
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