December 13, 2011

Hey everybody!

Well, the cold hasn't quite hit us yet which I'm enjoying. We haven't had to really put our toques on yet so life is good. Elder Stephan is getting transferred and I'm going on another 3 leg! Im now with Elders Hawkins & Perez in the East still. It's going to be fun aGAIN!!!

Well, I'm excited to see some things happen this transfer! It's been a rough week for us. Shawn set a date on Thursday. When he realized he had to move out or get married, it was bad news. He called us over before his appointment and gave us a bag with all of the Book of Mormon's, pamphlets and dvd's and gave it all back. It was really hard to swallow down. We had 7 member presents scheduled that day and all of them cancelled except for one. We were very diligent with the 15 minute principle and did not see a lot of immediate success yesterday but still kept our heads high. Carlin was the only person we met with. His mom is in the Sunridge ward and he just met her this week. He came to church on Sunday and enjoyed it. He has a strong relationship with God but doesn't understand the importance for religion. I wish we knew that before the lesson. He is committed to reading the Book of Mormon and gave a very sincere prayer at the end.

There have been a lot of trials and opposition this week and I know that they're merely opportunities for us to grow. I am going to be patient with the Lord (that doesn't mean im going to mope around and wait for a miracle to fall in our laps, but we're going to work hard knowing that eventually he'll bless us).

I've been reading the Book of Mormon (who would've thought) and caught this neat insight in the war chapters. Towards the end of Alma, Moroni narrates that they were struggling because they had no provisions. The next verse says that when they noticed this, they opened their hearts to the Lord and poured out their souls to Him. It's a principle that we're living right now because we're at the point where we almost don't know what to do with some of the people that we're working with... so we're going to turn to the Lord!

Love,

Elder Madsen