Monday, September 8, 2014

Trying to overcome discouragement


September 2, 2014
Well I am kind of bummed to hear that people are thinking badly about me in the missionary network. One of my housemates said that he talked with some missionaries who I don’t even know and they said, “Oh, Elder Colvin is trouble!  When I hear emergency transfer, I think of him.”  I can’t believe it.  I did absolutely nothing to get transferred and my reputation is destroyed.  I have no way to solve this problem so I just have to try to keep on working, but I have to admit that it is discouraging.
In other news, I let an elder cut my hair today. It ended up pretty good.  In the missionary work, we are helping another less-active family come back to church.  They have already said that they want to be able to go to the temple someday.  I hope that they can make it.  The husband is a great man and could be a great leader in the ward. F. and S. are really progressing.  Their mother is working super hard to help her boys learn and stand firm.  We can already see huge changes starting to take place in that home. It is great working with families! Their baptism is planned for the 6th.

September 4, 2014
            We are doing a lot of contacts here because a lot of our appointments are falling through lately.  Mainly they fall through in the afternoon because people are too busy to talk to us.  They are either working, studying, or sleeping.  Our most successful lessons are at night.  People are very willing to talk to us in the evenings.  We visited people tonight with E. who is a recent convert and is getting ready to go to the temple.  We visited with his niece who had been taught by other elders a long time ago.  We felt that we should try to get to know her and find out what problem she had with the church.  The problem that she had was coffee.  She said that she couldn’t stop drinking coffee and that is why she wasn’t baptized.  Elder Benitez was inspired to invite her to fast this weekend to see if she can get the strength necessary from the fast to break her addiction. 

September 5, 2014
            F. and S. passed their interviews.  It took a big chunk out of our day but it was one of the best interviews that Elder G. has ever had!  F. had a really great interview and when he was asked about the Word of Wisdom and why we should keep it, he said, “Because it is God’s commandment.” 
            Throughout the day we were able to teach plenty of people and a family of 6 said that they got an answer from God that what we were saying is true.  We were just about to stop teaching them because they were not showing any progress and then they got their answer.  I am hopeful for them that they will be able to progress.

September 6, 2014
            Wow, everything fell through today.  It would have gone well except we did not have anyone available to teach with us and our appointments were with women. You have to have 3 men in order to enter into a single woman’s house. 
The only thing that didn’t fall through was the baptism, but it was kindof sad.  It was just the family, the bishop, the missionaries, and the ward mission leader, and the young men’s president at the baptism .  The young men’s president baptized F. and Elder B. baptized S. 

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