Time feels so weird
out here in the mission field. Each day seems to last forever, and then
it is night and I can hardly remember what happened during the day. And
then each week goes on and I can hardly remember what happened. It feels
all at once long and short. I'll do my best to give a good rundown,
though.
Let's see...we
have found some cool families this week. We actually tracted into
M__ last week, but we had another lesson with her on Tuesday that
went really well. Then on Wednesday we were tracting, knocked on this
home and were let in by a Hispanic woman. She told us that her
father-in-law was a member and that that was the 2 anniversary of his
death, so we know that we were led there. We have a lesson coming up
with her, but I'm.going to miss it due to exchanges. The other family we
were excited about, the Mc__, well...so we met A__, the mom,
when we were trying to contact a potential next door. We gave her "The Family, A Proclamation to the World", but probably weren't going to check back, since
she didn't seem too interested. Well, we came back to the area, again
trying to contact her neighbor, and we met her husband who said that
she had read our pamphlet and was researching our church. Wow! So we
asked when we could come back, and showed up on Thursday to talk to her.
She had questions, but as we followed the spirit and testified she
really seemed impressed with our faith and what we believed. She said
she would think about coming to church, and we were supposed to call her
on Saturday. Fast-forward to Saturday: we call, she answers...she had
watched an anti-Mormon video in the meantime. So she dropped us, and is praying
for our souls. Oh well. The last family we found, the S__'s, are just a
nice little family. It was funny, we'd been trying to get in with them,
finally found them at home and taught a quick lesson, and then we went
to the park to try and street contact. And they were apparently going to
the park too! So we kept seeing each other and waving ;)
I
was reading in Alma this week, Alma 24:7-16 where King Anti-Nephi-Lehi
speaks to his people, and chapter 26 where Ammon "glories in the Lord",
and I got to thinking about the Lord's hand in our lives. Both the king
and Ammon talk about how they and the people did certain things, but
they attribute all of the growth and progress and change to the Lord. I
thought about the Alma 32 faith as a seed analogy. We have to plant the
seed, and nurture it for it to grow. But we can't say that we made it
grow. God is the one that makes plants grow. And the same is with our
lives. We allow God to work in our lives and he makes us grow and make
changes. I really like D&C 59:21 on that subject, as well.
Other
things that happened this week: I had my first zone conference! We
drove down to Oakhurst, outside of Houston, and got to listen to
President and Sister Hewlett address us. Sister Hewlett gave some great
points about using the Book of Mormon and being passionate about what we
share. She asked if any of us had a Book of Mormon story or prophet we were
passionate about. My hand flew into the air..."Mahonri Moriancumer!". So
I got to share a little bit about why I liked him, and then she talked
about how my countenance changed because I was passionate about the
subject.
On Friday and
Saturday Elder Davies, one of our zone leaders, came to do exchanges
with Elder Lloyd and I. Because it's quite a ways for them to come, one went
with the Woodville elders and one went with us to form two trios. It was a great
day, we had a lot of really good contacts. Elder Davies is really bold,
so I made some goals to be more like that in declaring our message and
promising blessings.
At
our Sunday meetings, we had none of our investigators come...that
reminds me, for those of you keeping track, we haven't been able to meet
with F__ or K__, so neither of them are on date anymore. Were
trying to fix that. Anyways, we had this guy we didn't recognize show up
at sacrament meeting. We were a little wary, he looked grouchy and a
little wild, but when we talked to him after he said he had read the Book of Mormon
3 times, knows it is true, and believes that Joseph Smith is a prophet,
and wants to be a member of the church. What!? It sounds like he has an
interesting story, so we will try and work with him, but that was a
pretty cool miracle.
Alright,
that probably at least let's you know I'm still alive and doing well. I
love the Jasper branch! Have a great week, y'all!
Love,
Elder DeFord
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| Double Rainbow |
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| Some chickens that were free roaming around the road. We wanted to grab and cook one |
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