September 16, 2013

Hello everyone!

I had a good week this last week. Elder Murphy and I are beginning to find a balance between finding and teaching. Obviously we would like to be teaching more than we are, but the first few weeks we knocked a ton, and the last couple weeks we barely knocked at all because we were trying to increase our lessons and somehow thought that just not knocking very much would help. We are beginning to find a better balance now.

We contacted a semi-interested seeming guy quite a few weeks ago, and on Saturday he called us and set up an appointment. His name is Roni and he is from Haiti. He is actually fairly interested, and he is now an investigator. We taught the first lesson, and comitted him to read the Book of Mormon, and he seemed fascinated by it. We have hopes for him. We also had a great lesson with Laurette yesterday. Laurette is a woman about Mom's age from Madagascar. She and her husband are interested, but her husband works in the forestry industry way up north, so we haven't managed to have a lesson with him yet (we had one set up where he was going to be there, but their 1 year old daughter had to go to the hospital so the lesson didn't happen. She is fine though). Her 2 year old son Luca is the craziest little guy I've ever met. We brought the High Priest group leader to the lesson, and he did a great job keeping Luca distracted, then passed him off to Elder Murphy and bore a very powerful testimony of the Book of Mormon, and how it strengthen's his young family, and how it can help her. I told her about Dad and how the gospel helped his family when he was young (in French). The story really touched her and impressed her. She could relate to Grandma B, she being alone with the children all the time (the husband has an alcohol problem). She wants to come to church, but wants to wait until her husband can come (he has all fall and winter off. Also he seems really nice, but I guess he isn't to engaged in the family life).

The Gospel is true. I see every day more the blessings that come from being obedient. Seeing these blessings builds my faith, which helps me be even more obedient. Faith is a principle of action. We gain faith by studying and living the gospel. The Lord doesn't require us to reach perfection ourselves, but he requires us to jump, and have faith that he will catch us and carry us the rest of the way.

Now: a picture of my new haircut...