Week 33 In Fort Lauderdale....

First off 2 requests that will need some Facebook snooping I need you to find/ask S** C******* for her address, she sent me a letter a while ago, but I lost her address and have not replied. Then I want you to hunt down Elder C****'s email for me, I want to know what it's like on the "west coast" (the people here literally call it that, I used to think California when they would say that) (Elder C**** is serving in the West Coast of Florida)

So this week was an interesting week full of weird circumstances and unusual things taking place. But somehow we are still here! A missionary once said, "Every Sunday I don't know how we are going to make it through church, but every Sunday we do." I used to think of church as relaxing, easy, and I remember all the talks being wonderful (soothing, sleep inducing). Now as a missionary church is the MOST FREAKING STRESSFUL moments of my life. Because it's uncontrollable! As a missionary during the week we control the content and amount of information that we give to investigators, not in a deceptive or sneaky way, but we teach them what they need to know and we teach them to their desires, and especially what the spirit prompts us too. We basically teach our investigators what they can handle and what they need to know so they can take another step forward then we start again.

But then there's church.

Church is uncontrollable. You don't know who will be there, what they will be talking about, what strange and complex doctrines that long time members will share. So it makes it VERY stressful! Like this week I about fell out of my chair when a member started talking about how we have a heavenly mother and that it is our duty to live good here to so that we ourselves can become Gods. All of that is true, but it is confusing and is hard for members with strong testimonies to understand sometimes, let alone a person that we haven't even had a chance to teach the Plan of Salvation. It adds a few obstacles when members throw stuff like that around!

But we always survive.

Somehow the work still progresses and people still get baptized. People feel the spirit at church and that is what converts them and helps them gain a testimony. Most of the time it's not the doctrine or the people. It's the Spirit. That is what truly matters and makes a difference

 This week was an interesting week full of energy and movement. We really helped excite a lot of members and used them in different ways. We started a recent convert Family Home Evening at a recent converts home that will happen every week so that they are all there helping and encouraging each other to succeed in the church and fellow shipping one another, it also helps them in their preparations for the temple. We also had a member this week that REALLY wanted to knock doors with us so we did, we took him Harvesting and it was really cool, he was able to bear testimony of the spirit and help them recognize it.

This week was interesting in comparison to last, we had a plethora of progressing investigators last week and very few new ones, but this week we and an increase in New Investigators, but none that were progressing or had desires to progress.

This week in my studies I focused on using Preach My Gospel and the Book of Mormon together instead of 30 min reading and then 30 min of studying, I decided to use my Book of Mormon time to search for examples of the things I was studying in Preach My Gospel and it amazed me how no matter where in the Book of Mormon I was there seemed to always be some sort of example in the chapters that I was reading. 

That is what I learned this week! Love you guys!

STAY STRONG PUSH ON!!

ELDER PARK!!