God is great, beer is bad, and people are crazy
Yea so there isn't really a story behind that subject, but I have been waiting for an opportunity to use that title. I decided today that I was just never going to have a week like that.
I'll start with responding to stuff: Wow lizzie has braces! She looks so grown up with those things! Why does she have to go and grow up while I'm gone? also that was like the first picture I've ever seen of the fire-pit. I was geeking out about that too. Oh wait I just remembered that we can go on to the churches "google earth" thingy and I totally saw a picture of the house while the pit was under construction.
As far as life here in Terrebonne, things are great actually. This little Guatemalan guy named Is..., who works on a grass farm 6 months out of the year and spends the other 6 back home in Guatemala, does more missionary work than the three entire wards I've served in combined. And that's not knocking on the three wards. He has already asked us to come up to his place to teach the other south-American workers that he's been talking too. The guy doesn't even speak french or English! Luckily most of his friends do, so we are able to teach them. Most are only passingly interested, but one has turned into a real investigator. The man's faith is so incredible! It's unlike anything I've seen before. He honestly concerns himself with the salvation of every child of God he runs into. I hope one day hope to be like him. He is a one-man example of how "Hastening the Work" works.
In other news we've had some decent success from calling old formers. That is our main source of new investigators right now as we start to get the ward up and running.
Elder S said something really special to me yesterday in companionship inventory. I may not have mentioned it before, but before my mission I was a coward. A bad one. I've had some serious spiritual experiences confirming it as one of my major weaknesses. Yesterday Elder S listed fearlessness as one of my good qualities. He cited an incident from that afternoon. We were passing by a less-active who we knew absolutely nothing about. His house was very out of the way and wasn't easy to find. It was shabby and I described it on first sight as a "man-cave." My intuition was right and it was messy and filled with beer bottles and definitely not the home of any women. We knocked on the front door and the dog started barking and we saw a guy moving around through the window but no one came. Elder S was ready to leave, but I was really irked that this man wouldn't answer his door. All we wanted was to help him! So instead I walked to the back door (with comp. in tow) and banged on that door. A large mid-twenties dude with a Mohawk answered the door. I calmly introduced us and chatted for a minute. He was going to leave soon, so we set an appointment for later this week to come back and visit him. Then we left.
Upon reflecting on this story I realized that I have changed. I've learned to face fear that I was not capable of overcoming before. The difference I think is the spirit. When I have the spirit, I am strong enough to do whatever he needs me to. I love my mission. I can't think of anything I needed more for my life than this. I'm so grateful to all who helped me get out here.
The Atonement is real. I know it because it has healed me. My Savior has power to do all things, but all he wants is to see us happy. I know that as surely as I know anything else.
I love all of you!
Elder Hardy
No comments:
Post a Comment