S*l*o*w Week

Monday 25 January 2016

  I keep thinking of friends at home who would so benefit from the peace that this gospel brings and hope that they are able to feel the Spirit in some way (maybe a miracle) through my hastily written emails about my experiences here in Riverside. Stranger things have happened!

I hope Joyce is alright. That is really sad to hear. That must be incredibly hard. I also hope Stevie is doing alright. I really hope he knows how much he is loved. He's got a lot of potential and a lot of people who want the best for him. I hope Corey recovers quickly too. How is he fairing in the land of Zaboomafoo? Every time I think my life is hard here, I just think about Corey and Wesley in Madagascar, or pretty much any other mission, and how much harder it has got to be than mine, and the feeling goes away haha.

This week has been pretty slow. We have really been working on the less-actives and part-member families in the ward. We had a lot of bad luck this past week, with all of our set appointments but one cancelling on us (but the one with _______, a LA/PMF in our ward was so so spiritual and they are really excited for our next appointment. The thought we shared with him and his non-member wife was extremely powerful and obviously what they needed to hear. It was without a doubt led by the Spirit.). I am grateful for the counsel we received recently to be more charitable, because that is definitely something I need to work on. When I learn to love others, especially those that I would logically have no reason to love--as the Savior loved others-- then I will be a successful missionary and more importantly, a successful priesthood holder. I am curious on how I should learn to love those who don't reciprocate such a love, but I am almost positive the answer to that is the same as the ideas that we tell to our investigators, which is to feast from the scriptures prayerfully and ask our Father in Heaven for His guidance. That is my challenge for myself for this upcoming week. I am so excited because we have set appointments for almost every night this upcoming week and we have received a bunch of referrals that are hopefully those golden ones we are always so excited to receive.

Also, we went to the driving range today. We all have blisters and sore backs. I think we are old now. I also am terrible at soccer, but did keep the other team from scoring once or twice.