Boom!
I'm pretty pumped, not going to lie. This week was freaking awesome.
So Elder Wedel? He's an animal. An actual animal with a white shirt and nametag. He's insane. Not just in work ethic, but in Faith. I couldn't write all the lessons I've learned this week in 100 emails, but I'll try and condense the big lessons.
First off, the area we whitewashed into had 1 investigator and no Less-actives or recent converts they were working with. That changed. The ward was kind of bugged, because (as the Bishop said) "This ward hasn't been worked by the Elder's in a few years". That changed this week.
When we sat down to set goals for the week, we went through the goals. I was going to put down a goal for no one baptized or confirmed (because there was no baptism set up, and that's a process that takes a few weeks of prep) but he demanded that we change that to 1. He told me that it probably wouldn't change our results for the week, but it would change our faith and drive to work. If we're setting the goal for 1 baptized and confirmed each week, our mindset towards the work changes and eventually we'll get there with enough Faith. DANG!
Then in District meeting, while everyone was sharing their goals for New Investigators for the week, everyone in the district said either 3 or 4... Except for us. We said 7 (another step of faith by Elder Wedel) Everyone literally laughed. That kind of bugged my companion, and he told them they needed to have a little more faith in the Lord's ability to bless us and our goals. We didn't reach our goal, but we got pretty darn close with 6. We felt so blessed!
We've started jogging from house to house while tracting (which we've done hours of) just to get more houses knocked. We plan to tract every single street in our area. (That's a lot of streets and a lot of houses by the way)
And there were so many miracles along the way! I've learned the power of Faith and how it leads to blessings. WE had to get to the bottom of the area in a short period of time to make our pre-scheduled dinner appointment, but we had no phone and no bikes yet. So what did he suggest we do? Prayed for a ride. And then we started walking. And what happens? The Ward mission leader drives by us picks us up, and gives us a tour of the area and drops us off at dinner.
We were far from home and really thirsty? We stopped and prayed for someone to offer us water. (we hadn't seen anyone all day because it was so hot) and not 3 minutes later we met a member who offered us water. Boom. There's more, but I don't have much time to talk.
The Ward Mission Leader is incredible. INCREDIBLE. He takes us out all the time, schedules appointments for us, the whole bit.
The whole ward is obsessed with missionary work, and feed us every night. It's honestly such a great ward. SUCH A GREAT WARD AND AREA AND COMPANION I AM IN LOVE.
It's so awesome.
We've also met plenty of crazies, because we're in the High Desert still. Holy cow, people here are sure obsessed with politics. One guy ( a less active) sat us down and was very mean and told us we were close minded for not believing that God was an alien and that most of the worlds phenomenons were caused by aliens. Then he started yelling and cussing at Elder Wedel for testifying of the book of mormon, haha. We told our Ward Mission Leader about him and his response was "Oh, you saw Brian? That guy's coo coo for coacoa puffs" We had a pretty good laugh about that.
Gah, this is a novel. But in closing, I'll tell a story of a guy we met. We hit it off well with him, talking about his cars (he has a gorgeous restored mustang that took him 11 years to build.. Worth quite a bit). After a while we told him that God's done a bit of restoring himself! But not with cars. After chatting a bit, he told us the only two mormons he's ever known converted after he'd known them for a long time. After that they never talked to him again. He tried. He said he wrote letters and emails and left messages on their phones, but got nothing back. He said he liked us, and wouldn't mind listening but he didn't want to join a church where he wasn't allowed to love those who weren't of his faith. Ouch.
Luckily Elder Wedel saved it with his Farm boy charm, and told him that while the church is perfect, the people aren't. We have an appointment with him tomorrow and everything but AAAGH. It broke my heart.
Always remember that you represent something greater than yourselves. You represent someONE greater than yourselves. Love everyone. Always. No questions asked. Not in a fake way. Love them and everything about them. Get to know them. Talk to them. Serve them. Please. Some people are easy to love, and some aren't easy. Sometimes we aren't easy to love but the Savior ALWAYS loves us. There are no off-days with his love, unless we are the one's who turn from him.
And I love you all. You're all such great people with incredible potential for good in this world. So no matter what the situation you're in, love and know you're loved.
Church is true!
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