Hello Everybody,
This is Elder Record and it is October
the 10th and it's Canadian
Thanksgiving today. For Canadian Thanksgiving it kind of goes
over the Sunday and the Monday. I don't remember which one. Last
night we had two thanksgiving dinners; one of them was an
investigator so we couldn't say no, and the others had prepared food
for us. But also tonight we have two thanksgiving dinners again, both
of them with investigators. One of them is with the other Elders'
investigators, but they're a part member family. We are going to have
Thanksgiving with them. It's different here. In the states you have
Thanksgiving and it's a lot more commercialized, but over here people
don't eat quite a much and it's not as publicized. It's pretty fun.
Last Monday on the 3rd I got
a hair cut from Elder Bowes, and he did a pretty good job, and I was
very impressed. It's just easier to get a hair cut from one of the
other guys because you don't have that much time, especially on a
P-day because you're getting stuff ready and what not.
We are making district T-shirts. That
will be pretty cool, we're just waiting for the place to get our
design ready. It will have “The Whitehorse Warriors” on it, and
it will say 2
Corinthians 12:10 on it, that is our scripture we have on the
shirt for the Whitehorse Warriors (haha).
On Wednesday we got something very
rare. We got a referral from Salt Lake. It's not just any referral.
It's an IMS referral, and we think that has something to do with
Internet Missionary Service or something like that. We're not sure,
but it was probably like a chat or something and she wants a
missionary visit. She wanted to learn more about temples and eternal
marriage. We were talking with some people, two people actually, and
they said the last one of these they gave, they were baptized. And
so, I am so excited – we haven't been able to catch her yet because
nobody's at the house. But it is Thanksgiving weekend so she's
probably away with family and stuff. We will see again tomorrow and
probably ask her neighbors if anybody lives in that house, and if
somebody lives there then we know we're set. It was kind of
interesting because we got the address and this neighborhood does not
exist on the map. It's newer than the map. And so that was a blessing
too. I think it was definitely divinely inspired, and the Spirit is
working here, and we will see where it goes. It was Range Road
neighborhood. It's a trailer park that is brand new, it's very nice.
There's like 500 people probably in this area – nice apartments,
there's the trailers, it's got legit roads, and things like that
(it's not just dirt roads). It was amazing that we found this place.
We're thinking now or maybe later we're going to do a street scouting
activity where we pull out a notebook, start with a prayer, and go
out and visit every single street in our area, and wait for
inspiration on which roads we need to hit up. That way maybe we can
hit some of those roads that aren't on the map and record them, and
get to people again later.
This week I've definitely felt the
Spirit. As I've been studying, through prayer and hard work, my
studying is becoming more focused. I'm able to focus on any topic and
really dig into it because of the Spirit, and it's really been
benefiting me spiritually, tremendously! I'm so much less distracted
than I was before. I've been finding that as I have been striving to
do my best with living the mission rules, I've found that through
obedience, even to little rules, for me I'm proving myself to the
Lord and doing something I know I can do to prove myself to receive
these blessings that I desperately need. You can't do missionary work
alone or else you fail, and you fail fast. You start to get
distracted – that's the big thing actually. I'm working on that,
and I'm noticing that as I keep the rules my focus is increasing a
lot. I wrote down a quote from the missionary handbook. It says, “to
keep your eyes single to the Lord and His work, avoid all forms
worldly entertainment.” So to me that can be just about anything
worldly. You have got to focus the Gospel; you've got to focus
on Christ. A lot of that happens from your study in the morning.
Oh, another thing, if anybody like
Lorielle or Chris or Annelise wants some missionary training, on the
LDS store they got the Preach
My Gospel videos. They got the district
2 video on there. Those are good to help with teaching.
Yesterday was fast Sunday. I was able
to do it just fine, probably because I've been eating so much. I mean
I've been restricting myself on the eating, but there is sometimes –
they just feed you a ton, and so you have got to limit other meals a
little bit or eat healthy when you can and just do your best because
people are going to feed you a ton. You don't have much opportunity
to serve yourself here, but when you do, you better take advantage of
it and not take too much and eat slower. Then people don't feel like
you're way hungry and just sitting there hungry with no food – it's
kind of rude anyway. We've definitely had a lot of fun.
Probably the most spiritual experience
of the week was on Friday the 7th when we were studying
mormon.org. Usually when we study
mormon.org, we go to
the “Our People” tab and then go to “I'm
a mormon” videos and study them so we can share those with
people. I was thinking of somebody who had an issue or whose family
that had a little bit of an issue with women and the priesthood, you
know women not being able to hold the priesthood. So I looked it up
on lds.org and came up with the new
Relief Society manual “Daughters
in My Kingdom.” I started reading chapter
eight, and I felt the Spirit so strong. I wasn't sure if it was
just testifying of truth or if it was prompting me to share that with
this lady, but I felt the Spirit so strongly. We watched the little
introduction
video on the “Daughters
in My Kingdom” website. Again, I felt the Spirit so strongly I
was tearing up and things like that – it was weird because it
seemed so out of the blue for me. That is a wonderful book, so I
would encourage anybody at home, especially Mom, Lorielle and Annie,
to go through that because it was just – Wow! – I really felt the
Spirit. We are probably going to share that with this lady because it
answers the question so well. It talks about the temples and things
like that. Something about it is special. It was a very neat
experience.
We are ready for another good week. We
are going to do a lot more finding this week and getting out there
and hopefully get some new investigators and meeting new people.
That's been the week so far and has been very fun. As long as you are
not thinking about yourself, missionary work is awesome. When you
starting thinking about yourself, you start getting distracted and
you loose focus.
I know that the
Church is true. I know that the
Book of Mormon is true.
I know that missionary
work is an essential part of God's plan, and especially in the
gathering of Israel. I know that Father in Heaven will answer our
prayers. I know He hears and answers our prayers, and I know that He
can change our hearts. If we prayer sincerely and fervently, and do
our best to work toward something, He gives us the strength to do it.
It's amazing how weak we are. You don't realize it that much, and I'm
just barely starting to realize it now. All of us, we really need our
Heavenly Father's help. Prayer is so important, and studying the
scriptures. I know that's true, in the name of Jesus
Christ, amen.
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