Well if y'all read my mass emails you know that this last transfer in Fort Yargo has been pretty difficult, especially the past few weeks. But there's a scripture that I really like that I'd refer myself to found in D&C 121:7-8.
7 My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment;
8 And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high; thou shalt triumph over all thy foes.
Though this scripture is generally referring more towards the eternal picture, it applies to a temporal picture as well. A part that stands out to me is, "...if thou endure it well..." So I figured that if I just keep going and work hard here, enduring it well, that eventually something will come out of it, whether it be here in Fort Yargo, my next area, or life in general. So that's what I've been doing. Working hard and doing what I feel is best for the area. As you read on through my week (if you get that far) you'll see that it has been a stellar week. The best week this area has seen for as far back as I can see, so about a year or more. It's cool to see that as we endure our trials well that we'll be blessed and they don't go unnoticed.
Also, just to add...the last two elders to be here have also worked their hearts out with seeing little success. They didn't see much happen here, but I saw my last companion, Elder Knight, on Thursday and he was having a baptism this Saturday and has another one soon to come. He was blessed in his next area. Elder Tessyman, the guy before me with elder knight, worked hard here without much happening and he was transferred to another area in which he too is seeing much success.
So it seems to have a pattern directly correlating with how well we have endured our trials. We have three options.
- We can quit when things get hard, the problem with that is that if you quit, things will still be hard, the only difference is that you won't be moving forward and will never overcome those trials and enemies. You'll just drown and sit at the bottom in misery.
- We can go through life grudgingly and hopelessly putting in half-effort to overcome trials. The problem with that is we'd just be enduring, not enduring well. If you're in a current and you swim lightly towards the shore, you'll stay in place and struggle forever.
- We can trust in the lord, work hard, and manage our problems. This is the only way we can get over things. It may not even necessarily be in a short time or in this life at all. But as long as we endure it well, we know we can at least be promised peace and triumph over all things in the next life. If not...you don't have that promise and you'll just sit in your problems for the rest of your life.
Number 1 isn't an option. Number 2 is a lousy option. And number 3 is the only option we can choose if we're to make it through our problems. That's just a little something I've realized this week and wanted to share it.
Monday:
Woooooow, Kayli is a missionary now... What's happening? Never thought this day would actually come.... Today we were biking away from a missed appointment and Elder Summers said he felt like we should go back to the neighborhood (the projects (and it's dark)) but we didn't know why so we strolled around. Then Elder Summers found the door we should knock on. I say hey, that's familiar. So we looked at our map and it was a new investigator of ours' place (not sure how I didn't realize that). He wasn't there, but another guy was who Elder Knight and I talked with a couple weeks ago. We talked about the gospel and stuff and have a return appointment, so it was pretty cool!
Tuesday:
We went to a dinner appointment and they weren't going to be ready for at least another 30 minutes, so we told them no worries and that there were people we wanted to visit around the area anyways. So we went out to see a potential that we'd met the other day who said to come back later so he and his wife (I think) could hear us, heck yeah! He's an older guy and so is she. They let us right in and we got acquainted and whatnot. Get this...they trained their dog to flippin sneeze every time he needed to go outside! What the crap?? So they asked their dog, who is incredibly INCREDIBLY FAT if he needed to go outside and the poor thing started sneezing uncontrollably for like three minutes so they had to let him outsides. Haha it's so funny! When we got into the lesson it was awesome! We tied it to what we were talking about with them and the lesson went very smooth. The spirit was definitely guiding it because it was our first real lesson together and usually those get awkward. When Elder Summers quoted the first vision it got really strong. Then after a short pause the lady (Rebecca) said, "where's your church again? Can you give me the address?" Haha it was great. I couldn't exactly tell, but it almost seemed like the guy (Richard) started getting teary-eyed. During the lesson the members called us because it'd been half an hour since we were supposed to be back. We went to dinner and they were just finishing up. Afterwards we shared a little spiritual thought and it seemed to go pretty well. Then we went to another lesson with a guy we meet with sometimes. He's not a member but his whole family is and he goes to church every week for about a year, there's just complexities. As we were leaving he told us he was sitting on his porch and overheard his neighbors who just moved in talking about trying to find a church to attend, so we're going to try to swoop in by tomorrow. So it was a really good night.
Wednesday:
Holy crap. Last night I didn't fall asleep until 4:00 in the morning. Yesterday I was so tired that I fell asleep for a second at a red light, so I was looking forward to that sleep. Nope, I just sat there in bed as my eyes burned off like an insomniac.
Thursday:
Friday:
Saturday:
Dang today was legit!! Things went as planned for the most part. We stayed within a mile radius and taught lesson after lesson after lesson. This afternoon we taught 4 1/2 lessons. First we went to help an investigator of ours that we've been working with on and off for six months or so. He's been starting to come back to church lately and we're working on his 50+ year problem of smoking. We gave him a promised blessing the other day. He's cut smoking in half and was saying he's felt more at peace than he has in a long long time. Next we go to another person's house and teach them, nothing cray happens. Next we go to an investigator's house that we've been trying to get to church but his parents have been holding him back for the past year. A few weeks ago his mom overheard us and realized we didn't handle snakes and stuff. So she started asking questions and he told her to sit in with us, so this week she sat in with us. It was really awesome, she started opening up and we're going to talk to her more too. Then we head over to another guy we just met last week. We had a short lesson with him and extended the big B invite. He said if he came to know it's true he'd be willing, sweet! Then on our way back we felt we should try a potential investigator once more that Elder Knight and someone else found, even though we tried a few hours earlier. It went awesome, we taught a lesson and she really wants to meet with us. She'd met with missionaries years ago and was really close. She's excited to start meeting again. Then we had the lesson I was most excited for (I talked about them on Tuesday), it was a 6 mile bike ride in the cold and dark. We get there...no answer. So we rang the door bell...no answer. We could hear a tv inside and a light was on...By now we're nervous, we just biked far in the cold dark, so we called. What happened next surprised me...there was no answer. So we biked back. I don't think it's because they're not interested, we talked to them on Friday and they were happy to have us, they're just old and it was late. Overall a good day though!
Sunday:
Maaannn. After a strategically planned week and a lot of blessings, it's been done. There's something called a standard of excellence, ours is 3 new investigators, one at church, and one on date for baptism. Fort Yargo hasn't hit a single standard in at least 8 months. This week, with the help of the Lord, we hit a double standard. Meaning six new investigators, two on date, and two at church.
There isn't much rhyme or reason to these pictures from this week, but I figure I'll just send the ones I took anyways.
1. Just me standing on a Handlbarless Segway
2. A little cocoa missionary and a little macadamia missionary figurine that we're mimicking
3. I took this picture because Elder Bastos wanted to take a picture because we look super good
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