Hey guys!
So this week has been pretty crazy.
The beginning of the week was a very low point for us,
but the end of the week was a high point for us!
Towards the beginning of the week,
our spirits were pretty low.
This area has been quite rough during the past month.
Hours and hours of trying to find new people to teach and nothing
comes of it. And, we've been having troubles discerning spiritual
promptings. After some inspired counsel at zone meeting on
Wednesday on "promptings of the Spirit",
we had decided that we would follow through with ALL
thoughts and feelings we received throughout
our days and act on them.
One night, we were biking after a dinner
appointment and I was in front leading.
We passed this guy that was shovelling some leaves
into a bin outside of his house.
I felt the need to assist this guy, but kept riding.
Later down the road, I stopped and
Elder Hill said, "What's up?" I told him
I felt like we needed to help that guy.
He said he had felt the same.
So, we turned around and biked back
up there and asked if he needed help.
He said, "Oh yes! I wish you guys had come
yesterday when this pile was much bigger."
We laughed and began go assist him and got talking.
He's way into music so we talked a while
about guitars and whatnot. We, of course, led into religious talk.
He most definitely wasn't interested in church
but thanked us a ton for the help! He is slightly disabled
and was struggling with it so he was very much grateful for our help. :)
We were happy for following a prompting and he was happy for the service.
'Twas a win win situation. :)
You never truly know what can come from just loving and serving someone!
I would be lying if I told you I acted on ALL
the promptings I received in the past week.
There are, however, some important lessons that I have
learned about this topic:
1) Personally, you feel better after acting on a prompting.
2) The more you act, the more you receive and the easier it is to recognize.
3) Something may not always come from doing what you are prompted to do.
Towards the beginning of my mission, I
was confused when nothing came from acting on a prompting.
I would say, "Lord, why did you prompt me to talk to that person
or do that thing if nothing would come from it?"
I've come to the realization that if God rewarded us EVERY
time we acted, how would we truly grow from that experience?
If you were rewarded every time you did good,
who would ever do bad!
And it truly teaches you what faith really is.
Faith to act, and not knowing whether something good will come of it.
Anyways, enough preaching. ;) haha
Throughout the days, we tract a lot. Sometimes it can get quite
boring, especially when no one is interested!
So, we come up with fun little challenges to do while
in the conversation,just to keep ourselves entertained.
The funniest one was I challenged Elder Hill to
stretch during the conversation, like full on stretch his muscles.
So, we were talking to this old guy and Elder Hill just starts stretching
in front of this guy. I was trying so hard not to laugh during it!
Finally, the old guy insults us and laughs to himself
so I use that as an excuse to bust out laughing
(you know, so it seems like I'm laughing at his joke, even when I'm not).
It was SOO funny! :)
That really lightened our moods and actually
had a few good conversations with people after that!
One of the days, we went to Kingdom Hall to see if we could have
a New World Translation (standard for the JWs).
They were all looking at us funny and stuff.
The guy told us to come back another day to grab them.
So we did.
We expected them to be all bash aggressive but they
were actually quite nice about it! Twas cool:)
The first half of the week was rough for both of us.
Satan has a habit of getting to your head and stuffing it with discouragement.
But, something happened on saturday that made it ALLL worth it:)
We decided to go by a former investigator named Teresa,
'bout 45 probably. All we had basically was a name and an address.
When we met her, she was so excited to see us!
She had been taught by sister missionaries in 2013
and was progressing well with them.
The sisters eventually got moved
out and replaced by Elders and that's kinda when she lost contact with
the missionaries. The missionaries never stopped by her!
She loved church when she was going but after the sister left,
she felt she didn't know anyone so she stopped going.
So, we got to know her background.
Apparently she has read and prayed every day for the past year
or so and she has found comfort through that.
We were so freaking happy!!
It just made all the suckyness of the past month totally worth it:)
She is out of town for the next week or so in Wales
so we have set to teach her in a week from this Tuesday.
She was like "I can't wait to get to church now that I know you two!"
I'm hoping the ward will do some great fellowshipping with her.
I am so excited!! Can't wait to start teaching her. :)
So, as you can tell, this week contained both extremes.
Very difficult, but very rewarding.
That's the gospel isn't it. It's the greatest:)
Weather wise, it has been quite glum. Overcast most days. I think
there was one day that was nice weather. It's getting very cold now,
and the rain continues. Apparently, there's been some pretty bad floods
in Scotland though, so it could definitely be worse!
Yeah! That's about it really.
I hope your guys' week is awesome:) Love you all!
Have a great week.
Cheers!
Elder Wright
