January 29, 2009

January 29, 2009

We have 6 or 8 lessons scheduled for this week (I'm not exactly sure how many we have remaining, 2 or 3 I think...maybe a few more). We had exchanges with our Zone Leaders yesterday, so I wasn't at 3 of the lessons (there were 3 yesterday) but they supposedly went well for the most part. Elder Jensen and Elder Henry were able to meet with one of our investigators and it is apparent that he is seriously seeking peace in his life. So, hopefully he will allow the Spirit into his life and he will be able to find some (if not all) of the peace he is seeking in his life. Pray for him! The other lessons went well, from what I was told. 

Oh! On Tuesday we met with a less-active lady who wants to come back to church. She is so awesome!  She took the lessons and was baptized in like 1998 or something. Anyway, long story short, fell away, divorced, and now she wants to come back to church and have her children there as well. She seems so ready for the Gospel to be fully in her life.  We're teaching her the lessons because she want's to have things refreshed and questions answered.

Okay, so, other work that's going on? Well, on exchanges with the Zone Leaders, Elder Ferguson (he and Elder Henry are the Zone Leaders) and I got some pretty awesome work done. We were even let into the home of a guy that is a Jehovah's Witness after we knocked on his door while tracting. That was a pretty cool conversation and he said that we had given him some things to think about and to read up on. We even made a return appointment for the Zone Leaders with him next Wednesday. Cool! I hope they might be able to make progress with him and his family, and that it won't just be a Bible bash or anything. It was pretty cool to go tracting with Elder Ferguson, but that's alot of what the Zone Leaders do in their area, because they don't have a whole lot of people to teach, and their potential investigator pool and former investigator pool is relatively small. Anyway, exchanges were good.

There is progress with another investigator.  We had a lesson with him last Saturday and have another one scheduled for this Saturday. There hasn't been alot of progress, but there has been some. He doesn't seem as antagonistic as we first thought, though it still seems like it could lead that way if the Spirit was not present. But he's awesome too! 

All of our investigators are really cool people and I love them all. That's one of the things I wrote about in my journal the other day. I'd been praying since the MTC that I'd be able to love the people, because I surely felt that I loved the people back home (family, Kaycee, friends, etc.) far more than the people here. But I've seen Him working with me somehow and I really do love the people!  I definitely don't love all their decisions or choices, but I do love them and I want the best for them. I want them to be happy and I want them to be more happy than they presently are. And I know the best way to have more happiness is through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It's weird, because I haven't quite felt that as strongly as I have since being out here, but I feel it! I love the Lord and his tender mercies! He has so many of them and He is always ready to help us. It's also been cool to see that adversity somehow really does make us stronger and helps us to grow more than just about anything else. We gain so much through the trials we go through, and it's never very fun or easy, but so worth it when looking back. I could go on and on, but I do need to get going soon.

I love y'all, take care, and keep praying. Y'all are in my prayers!

-Elder Michael Starks