Today marks the day that I have been a missionary for 16 months! I can hardly believe it! It seems like just last month I entered the MTC, but at the same time, I can't even remember what it's like to not be a missionary. ("Would normal human beings consider this stalking?" is a question I ask myself daily.) Easy, time, you are getting ahead of yourself!
This email is slightly later than normal. That's because we enjoyed the beautiful fall foliage on a recreational bike ride this morning! I thought, "I bet at least one of my family members is going on a bike ride today" as we took off! It was fun! The leaves are starting to turn, and it is beautiful.
This week has been full of miracles! Yesterday, we had 2 lovely individuals show up at church! They weren't investigators, so that was really cool! One of them, Chris, had met with missionaries in the past, and decided he wanted to keep learning. So he came and brought his daughter with him. Normally getting people to church is like trying to pull Satan's teeth (He must work double time on Sunday mornings. It's ridiculous.), so it was quite refreshing to have them just come. And his daughter is in our area so we get to go meet with her later this week.
I also had a neat experience with prayer this week. We were out working one morning, and Plan A-Plan Z had fallen through, so we decided to go try to see Steve. He's a recovering drug addict, and we didn't want too miss seeing him for a long time. But he can be tricky to catch at home and awake. We knocked on his door, and his parents told us he was somewhere in the neighborhood, but they weren't sure where. So we started knocking on his neighbors' doors, looking for him (Remember the stalking question?) but no luck. We decided to say a prayer, and asked God to help us be able to see him. And then we kept knocking. Eventually, though, we decided we'd crossed the stalking line, and got into our car to leave. Right as we started pulling away, he walked out of his basement! And so we swerved into park again, and jumped out to go talk to him. Moral of the Story: Be diligent! We wouldn't have been able to teach him if we hadn't knocked on his neighbor's door, even with the prayer. And prayer really does make stuff happen.
So as you probably know, we're doing a Book of Mormon reading challenge in our mission! 8.5 pages a day, and we'll finish by Dec 4th. (If you are already to Jarom by now...) As I've been reading it this time, I've been studying and marking the doctrine of missionary work in red. On a previous reading of the Book of Mormon, I had studied and marked up all the verses about charity-the pure love of Christ-in purple. And it is really cool to see how often those two topics overlap! The heart and soul of missionary work is love! I love my Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ, and I am a missionary because I want to serve them. But the only way you can serve God is by serving your neighbor. And when you serve your neighbor, you develop love for them, and desire their salvation. So you take every opportunity you can to teach them the Restored Gospel, so they can have everlasting life! Just as Elder Oaks taught in his General Conference talk, sharing the gospel flows most naturally out of relationships that are filled with love!
I love you all,
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