Unfortunately this week was not the best week as far as teaching goes.We have the ability to teach a ton of people but for some reason we got nothing but cancelations. It is tough to deal with when you are trying your very best and people are still not willing to hear what you have to say. I know that this is a trial of my faith and if I hold out things will either work out or I will be able to change what I am doing so that I can make them work out. We have, however, been teaching a 17 year old named Alejo. He is progressing rapidly and we hope to have him on date to be baptized shortly. The woman, Karen that we had on date for March 15 is going to be taking a break which is a bummer. We hope she continues to be taught after her time away. We will see. The majority of the work that we have been doing has been with part member families of the ward. There are about a dozen of them in this ward so there is a lot of work to be done. Most of the time we find that the individual who is a member of the church really doesn't want anything to do with the church because of lifestyles and of time restrictions. We testify to them that this is where they need to be and this is what they need to be doing but in the end it is up to them and they need to be willing to put forth the effort and come back to church. Agency has to be one of the most frustrating things as a missionary. I know it is the whole purpose we are here. To decide for ourselves. But it is so sad to see so many people missing out on the blessings the Gospel brings to our lives.
About two weeks ago one of the brethren in the bishopric of the Sunburst ward came up to me and Elder Nielsen and assigned us to give talks during sacrament. I don't really like giving talks and so I was a bit nervous. This was going to be the first assigned talk that I've given as a missionary. It took him about a week and a half to get us our topic so we only had a couple of days to prepare for our talks. I was given the topic to talk about preparing to serve a mission based upon Thomas S. Monson's talk from 1995 . I got some insight from our ward mission leader on how to give a talk and what to say. I took the main bullet points that President Monson had and expounded upon and I made them my own. I think that it went really well and everyone at church said that it did. I was really nervous about giving it and I wanted to just read off the paper so that I could use the words that I wanted to use and be able to put them in the right order. When the time came I knew that the Spirit was with me and that the Spirit would help me to say with the congregation needed to hear. For the last half of the talk I didn't use anything which I written I just went off of the words that came to my mouth. It was a really incredible experience and I know that my Heavenly Father helped me to deliver the talk that he needed me to give.
On Wednesday I was woken up by the sound of Elder Crane throwing up in the bathroom which is adjacent to our bedrooms. I felt really bad for him so I stayed up with him for about an hour trying to make him feel a little better. He had to stay inside with his companion for the past two days. His companion Elder Christiansen went a little bit cabin crazy and started running around the house and he got insane because of the lack of going outside. It was really funny to see him that way cause he's normally not a very talkative or loud person in any way. On Wednesday we had a little time before going to a dinner appointment and so we decided to go into the church parking lot and make some funny biking videos of us doing some stupid tricks. It was really funny and me and Elder Nielsen were laughing so hard our abs hurt. We know that it probably wasn't the best use of our time but it was only for 20 minutes and it allowed us to let off a little bit of steam have some fun.
For some reason I keep having these crazy dreams about me being home when I'm not supposed to be. Everyone around me when I'm not home is super excited to see me and it's like I have completed my two-year mission but in my head I know that I've only been out for a short amount of time. It's a weird feeling and I don't really like it but for some reason I keep having them. I hope that it's not a prediction of the future! I guess I will have to see Ha ha ha. I hope that you all doing very well and I hope that you continue to build your faith and continue to do the missionary work we have been commanded to do. I love you also much and I will talk to you next week. Until next time,
Elder Cole Safford
No comments:
Post a Comment