Faith has a short shelf life
Dear Family and Friends,
I feel like at different points of this week that it went by quickly and other times it went by slowly. The area I serve in is different from the one that I was in previously. I know one thing that I wanted for the end of my mission was to be diligent and work hard and I feel like the Lord is really testing me. There is not much work going on in this ward, and it is less than a square mile big so I am really going to have to dig deep and work hard to build up this area and get the work moving along. Most of this week I spent the time organizing things and getting the area in order so we could more effectively plan and work. It is funny because I feel like I really don't OCD about things but I guess when it comes to the Lord's work I like it to be organized. I was a little shocked coming into the area because not much was marked up and not much information was written by people. Luckily they had progress records from all the way back to before I came out on my mission which was funny to see. So i went through all of them and wrote down the important stuff on the ward directory or teaching records and then threw out the rest that weren't recent. TO be honest a lot of them just said about people not being home. We then went through and redid our white board that way we could see everyone and all the potentials that we have to work with and even went through and created a street list( a list of all the members by street).
We pretty much walk around a ton because our area is so small. I think that is one thing that has been hard for me this week that our area is so small and their aren't really many people that we are working with. We have one investigator but he is a schizophrenic and has actually removed his names. So staying busy is really hard, I have been trying to figure out how to approach things in a different way here because it is so small and because it has already been worked in so much. But I am going about it in a positive attitude. I have so much faith that there is people in this area that are ready to be baptized, and that is something that we want this transfer. We might have to track the whole area to find them(which we could probably do by the end of the transfer to be honest). A lot of people have heard about the church before or know of us and so your typical door approach just won't cut it here. Luckily we have a lot of activities coming up and holidays as well which should help. I guess this is my big test to really see if I am willing to be diligent and work hard till the very end.
This week we met a lot of people, mostly those that are not interested, but Sister Broberg and I just saw that we are weaving out the "tares". We had zone meeting this Friday which was really good, we actually have 30 missionaries in our zone which is a huge difference from 12 in my last zone. Things are moving along and we are determined to keep the work really picked up in the area. It has been good serving with Sister Broberg, I feel like we are laughing all the time which is great and helps when we find those that aren't ready to take the next step in their life.
So here is a little rewind for you, I didn't get an opportunity to write about zone conference that much last week so I wanted to this week because it was so great! The theme of Elder Godoy's address was "Every phase is building the future of you". He really focused on marriage and future families. As missionaries we've all gone through the stages of being a new greenie/missionary. Some of us have been a new leader or trainer. One day we will all be new RMs, new couple, new parents or grandperents, new dead person on the other side (he mentioned how he's pretty sure there is a MTC for the newly deseased). One day we will all be new gods talking classes like 'How To Create Worlds 101'. Elder Godoy brought up the idea that as important as DOING what you're supposed to in what ever phase of life is BEING who the Lord wants youto be. "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." No one can be perfect in every phase as Christ was but we each have a level that we are perfect at. An apple is perfect as an apple should be. A banana is perfect as a banana. One should not look at the other and judge according to what they see as perfection (And then he started to go off on the Barney song about apples and bananas. I told you, he's crazy in the best possible way). So we all are given a level that we have to achieve at that time and no more. Just a brilliant talk. He then brought up that the baptisms in the world have gone up 11% across the world and 13% in the United States. How much in the Idaho Boise Mission? A grand total of 31%! Wooh! Just random tidbit he threw in:)
Things here are good! I read a talk this morning by Elder Eyring, where I got the title of my subject. This talk was so good and really hit me hard. I really feel like you all should read it!
Spiritual Preparedness . You all should read it and really apply to your life, we need to be doing things daily to build our faith, we can't just build it all up and store it for a time that we need to dip into it. This talk was given almost ten years ago and I feel like it applies to us so much today, it is a testimony builder today that the Prophets and Apostles have been called my the Lord to prepare us.
I love you and miss you all and hope that you have a great week. Pray with faith for and expect miracles, I know I am. Create those miracles and tender mercies in your life.LoveSister Metcalf
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