09/13/11

I got a few letters from some of you this week! I will express my excitement in the form of exlamation points. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's how much I love hearing from you so many thousand miles away. And a huge congratulations to Kellie Hoskins if you're reading this! Baptism is on my mind all the time, so you can imagine how excited I was to get the picture from the Hjelmstad's from your baptism. 

Speaking of baptism, my first is next Saturday! I can't give the name, but he is a really funny guy in his 40s from Scotland. Things he loves: Pokemon, making fun of Jehovah's Witnesses, Lord of the Rings, and the gospel. So Elder Bentley and I got along with him pretty well. Haha. He pretty much does all the research on the church on his own, and reads the Book of Mormon several times a day. That is GOLDEN investigator status. We really struggle to get all the other people we work with to read the Book of Mormon, even those who are progressing, so it's really exciting to work with him because he loves it so much. 

I have learned some really important things this past week. I was stuggling motivation-wise all week and even questioned at one point if I was really fit to serve a mission because of those struggles. I needed a break, and actually prayed for a break. Guess what? Sunday: church, two meal appointments. Monday: 7 hour-long mission conference plus a dinner appointment. Today: P-day. I feel so much more energized today than I did Saturday. So, prayer answered? You bet. 

I received a lot of inspiration at that conference. An area authority, Elder Donaldson of the Seventy (not sure which quorum), spoke with us along with President Lindley and their wives. They gave some powerful words of advice, but I received a very important revelation that none of them spoke of during the conference. It was regarding the feeling I had that I may have been "unfit" to serve a mission. This is not true. For those of you who may be reading this and preparing for a mission and you  feel it is not right for you to serve, put in your papers anyway, because this is not our work. If you are called by a prophet of God to serve a mission, and I am, it is by ALL means in the Lord's plan for you to go and do. If for some odd reason you are not meant to serve a mission, if you truly are "unfit", you will be informed by the Church as such. But this is rarely the case. The Lord takes inadequate boys with a desire to serve and turns them into might brethren in the Lord (Alma 17, v.2 I think). I don't have much time to say anything else, but I know that this is truly my duty to serve. I have been placed in the area I am in now because the people here need Elder Winder, and wherever you are sent to serve, it will be because the people there need Elder or Sister Soandso (you) and no one else. This is not our work, but the Lord's work. If we trust in him and do not complain, he will make sure it goes along smoothly. There is nothing that can prevent the work from happening but ourselves. And if we serve with all our heart, might, mind, and strength, the work will go on, and nothing will stop it. Be yourselves. 

I'm so excited to come back in what is really not that long from now and see you all again bigger and better people. I have to go now but just know I love you all and I am keeping you in my prayers every single night. Till next week,

 

Elder Winder