March 4, 2018
Do you know one of the things I hate the very most in this whole world? Running. I. Hate. Running. And we are ALWAYS running! From appointment to appointment to appointment to meetings to home to catch trains and subways and ugh! Why are we always running? Partly poor planning on my part. Partly because we are pretty busy. Partly because our area is HUGE! Anyways this week I started training for the 2020 summer Olympics. Maybe you will see me in the "100 meter sprint with a suit and tie and a huge bag with Book of Mormons" event. And who knows maybe I'll win? I sure trained a lot this week.
This week was a tough week. One of the longest of my mission
it feels. For reasons I can't explain I hit a big speed bump in the work. I
have lost the drive to do almost anything. My mind has not been on missionary
work and my heart wasn't either. I was tired. I haven't been doing personal
study for almost a week. My prayers were, existent but can I say "not
really"? I wasn't looking hard enough for miracles. I wasn't seeing the
fruits of my efforts. There were some arguments and fights among our district
of missionaries. My temper was short and my explosions were even bigger. Though
I never really explode at anyone, just myself.
This week was truly tough. So what got me through it?
1. Living with good people.
My companion and house mates are awesome! They are so fun,
so kind, and very genuine people... They love me. The support me. And they work
hard. They are great to live with and just a 15 minute talk can always loosen
me up! It is always nice when you can look forward to coming home after a long
hard day of work to good people.
On Monday we met with a very awesome young man. He loves
American music and get this, his favorite artist is, David Archuleta.... There
for he is very curious about Mormons. He was truly a genuine guy and he is very
interested in the Book of Mormon. And in our first appointment we were able to
build a strong relationship and to get him SUPER interested in the gospel!
Friday we had 3 back to back to back great lessons. The
first was with a man who we have been meeting for a while. He asked us to summarize
the book of Mormon in 5 sentences. I felt like Elder Tippetts should do that so
I looked at him. He must not have understood and he started bearing his
testimony on the Book of Mormon. Man it was strong! And it brought in the
spirit. Super strong. Then when I summarized and added my testimony to his, our
investigators heart opened and he took a Book of Mormon (which we have been
trying to get him to talk the last 2 meetings).
This isn't really a lesson, but a message we shared with a
member. We talked about the atonement of Jesus Christ and repentance. I shared
Doctrine and Covenants 19:16-18
16 For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all,
that they might not suffer if they would repent;
17 But if they would
not repent they must suffer even as I;
18 Which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of
all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both
body and spirit—and would that I might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink
It was powerful as we testified of the Love of our Savior,
and how we can show gratitude for his uncomprehend able gift.
Then we had a lesson with a man named Paul. Let me tell you
how we met Paul. We had received a referral from another set of missionaries
and I had been contacting him for a few days. When I was doing something I
asked my companion to call him. When Elder Tippetts searched for the name Paul,
he called the wrong Paul. I recognized it wasn't his voice and grabbed the
phone and started talking to him. And he is very interested. And met us Friday.
We was 100% searching for the peace and comfort from the Gospel. For reasons he
did not go into detail about, he has made some bad choices and has a ton of
guilt and pain and heartache. And he wanted forgiveness from sins and peace
through Christ. We were able to testify of the reality of the Atonement of
Jesus Christ, and the blessing that come through the Atonement of Jesus
Christ.
Those were some of the best teaching moments I have had and
it was a great week.
Other than that this week we had zone conference and I
performed on the ukulele. I'm sure it's on Facebook if you want to see it.
We had some district activities in which we street boarded
and made a new street board.
And that's it!
Overall a fantastic week. One last thing is I found my
favorite Prophet! Or rather a Prophet that I know nothing about and rarely hear
his teachings mentioned. John Taylor. Yesterday during personal study I read from the teachings of
John Taylor, the third president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints. He talked about integrity. Something I have been thinking about a lot
lately. Here is what he said that struck me the hardest: Show and prove to the world, to angels and to God that you
are on the side of truth and right, of honesty, purity and integrity, and that
you are for God and His Kingdom.
Integrity is not an easy trait to acquire, in fact I would
say it is one of the hardest. In public or alone, in our hearts and in our
mind, we must be committed honest pure people. That sure is tough. And it's
supposed to be tough. We are supposed to prove to God and angels that we have
integrity. I want to work a bit harder on being trusted by heaven and a person
of integrity. I hope you all do too!
Elder Goon
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