Friday, July 18, 2014

July 14, 2014

I'm so exhausted my eye's been twitching since I woke up this morning. We had an unreal week last week. Pretty sure mission records were broken. We were super blessed this week and obviously a lot happened that i'm now not even able to remember. Ended up teaching a lot of new people who couldn't say know to our boldness and confidence in the message and the spirit that came with. 
What made this week intense was the amount out lessons we were able to teach and the new investigators we were able to find. We slightly changed the way we went out to go talk with people on their doors and in the streets and it made a pretty drastic difference. Our fine tuning was mostly sparked by some of the thoughts we had at president house in the beginning of the month and then this whole training meeting we did on the 4th of july. We've really started applying these things in our area and we've been blessed with some crazy results. Its satisfying to see that some other areas in the zone have as well. The frustrating thing is that not everyone is applying what they learned from the meeting into their areas and so they're just chilling. I can't tell you how annoying that can be. We were all a part of that same training meeting.  We were all taking notes specifically on the principles learned as well as the promptings recieved from the spirit. Its clear as day who's applying and not applying the principles into their own area. I'll admit that I get worked up sometimes about the decisions of other people. Nothing wrecks me more than Idleness and and wasted time. But I know that's dumb and I should personally just try my best, make sure that I'm doing all the right things, then be a positive christlike example for others.
This week has strengthened my testimony of the importance of faith and works. I know and have experienced over and over again that Heavenly Father will find people for me to teach as long as I'm trying to build up this area in the way that He wants it built up. Our balanced attack of helping the members get involved and using the extra time to find on our own has proven to be the way to go. I know that Heavenly Father is blessing me with the spirit because He "looks upon my heart" and knows that I'm here to WORK. Consequently he keeps putting all these people in our path. I'm trying my best to show charity to everyone I meet so that then can recognize us as servants for Christ and not just robots hungry to force christianity down some throats. Charity is crucial for this work and its the only thing that will empower me overcome my disappointments and frustrations. I'm super grateful that Holden and I are equally as passionate for the work here. Its nice to be able to cruise around in the car from appointment to appointment and just vent if we need to. We're not perfect but I can honestly say we couldn't be more satisfied with the efforts we're putting in right now. We had a great experience with one of our investigators from Liberia. We've had a baptismal date with him before but certain challenges popped up. We've never stopped meeting with him though and his testimony has been getting stronger and stronger. He's a beast and getting guidance from God simply because he's prays sincerely, he reads the Book of Mormon and he comes to church. He's been having a stressful time with family, work and finding a new place to live so its been hard for him to get baptized and make those necessary covenants.  We fasted and prayed with him to help him find out when he should be  baptized. We went into his house with a member on tuesday and he whipped out piece of paper and wrote down three dates: July 30, August 8, and August 2. He then explained.. I'm moving just down the road on the 30th, my birthday is on the 8th and I'm getting baptized on the 2nd. We were pumped that everything just worked out that easily for him. He's ready to start his new life. It was also pretty cool because his 18 year old daughter and her friend were there to and they wanted to learn about the church. Our investigator then helped us teach and the daughter came to church this week. She loved it. All sorts of cool things are happening over here in drammen and we're still seeing some growth towards this areas full potential. Its great to be a part of it event though it leaves me exhausted spiritually and physically. It will all be worth the peace of mind later on in life and the eternities.  I seriously appreciate all the awesome members here who are helping us out in the work.

Please have a fun and exciting week and be grateful in your circumstances! 

Love,

Eldste Niklas Skinner

No comments:

Post a Comment