Week 21

Hole Everyone.

Just like always, I sure hope you've all had an amazing week. It amazes me being on the mission now how much I'm able to feel the spirit - whether it's a super strong feeling or a super small feeling or just simply feeling joy and love and peace and happiness in my life. I hope you can all try this week to feel the spirit because I know without a doubt we can and should have experiences like this every week where we do feel the spirit. I have an experience I want to share from this week.

So we had divisions with another area this week and my companion went to the other area and a missionary from the other area came here with me to our area. We had three or four appointments lined up and I was so dang excited to teach because we haven't been having a whole lot of success here and the people haven't wanted to accept us much. Anyways, we went to every single appointment and every single one of them cancelled on us. Good heck, I was so bummed about this. But we kept working. We started contacting and we contacted quite a bit. After contacting for quite a while and no one letting us in, we finally found someone who wanted to listen and then we found another and another. We ended up having three people this day that are possible investigators and we were able to teach them all a little bit about the gospel. What a BLESSING this was. I know with all my heart that when we do all that we can and we really don't think we can do any more, Heavenly Father will step in and help us out.

Anyways this same day, we had another appointment with an inactive lady in our area. She hasn't gone to church in probably a year or more. She's about 60 years old or so and she's super stubborn and she knows it too! Anyways, we have been teaching her for the whole time I've been in this area about once a week, and she hasn't changed a bit. And that really makes me wonder why and what we are doing wrong.

So we decided to teach her about the restoration. So we taught her a little about the restoration and she remembered quite a bit. Then she started talking about how she struggles with members because they put their shirts and ties and dresses on and go to church on Sunday. They act different on Sunday and everything and then they come home and then they act no different then every other person on the street. I told her that yes, that might be true with some people and that we need to act different because we are different than every one else. I then started talking about how great of a blessing it is to know what we know - to literally have the knowledge that we have. I told her that we know what happens in the end and we know that we can live with our families forever. Since we know all of this, why in the world should we not live this gospel like we know we should. Through this experience and lesson, Heavenly Father allowed me to just be overwhelmed with JOY because WE KNOW we have everything that we possibly need - we just need to persevere to the end!! She ended the lesson by saying that she wants to change and that she's going to start changing now and she hasn't even made a move to change in all the time I've been here, so I was amazed to hear that from her.

Anyways, I sure hope you all have another amazing week and I sure hope you can all think of the blessings that we all have, especially the knowledge we have alone in this gospel. We are truly blessed. My heart is full of joy to share this gospel. Just like President Monson said, "May we always choose the harder right than the easier wrong."

I love you all so much. This church is so true. Heavenly Father blesses us so much and we can and will be healed through our difficult times if we come unto Him. The atonement can and will heal us of our sins and problems if we truly repent. I love you all!

Elder Blake