Dear anyone and everyone I know,
Wow, this week has flown by! It's crazy that the more you focus on the work the faster time goes. On the opposite side, the more you don't focus on the work the slower time seems to go. It's almost not fair because the more you focus on the work the more you love the work and the more you want it to slow down so you can enjoy it but the opposite happens and it tends to speed up! This week has been full of cool little miracles that I would love to share.
So last week during our weekly planning session, Elder Allowitz and I decided that we wanted to set a goal of finding as many investigators as there were days in the week. (Considering the fact that this area was kind of lacking on investigators when I got here we decided that it was very past due to have a good finding week.) So as we went throughout the week we started seeing little miracles happen where we were placed in peoples paths that allowed us to ultimately achieve our goal. One of those cool little miracles happened when we were on exchanges. Being a district leader, it is my job to go on an exchange with everyone in my district every transfer and try to help them out with their missionary work. Before going on my first one of the transfer Elder Allowitz had the awesome idea that we should make it a goal to find on every single exchange for both areas that we were going to be working in. So while I was over with another companion in his area he was working away in our area trying to find new people. To make it a little more fun we decided that if one of us was unable to find in the area we were working then that person would have to buy the other one ice cream on preparation day. So on our first exchange I went with an Elder named Elder Stephenson into his area while Elder Allowitz stayed here with Elder Beyer. (Who just so happens to be one of my previous companions!) The area that I was going into has been known to be one of the hardest areas because of how "white" it is over there and so I was slightly worried that we were going to be the ones buying the other Elders ice cream. About half way through the day that concern became more real when we got a call from the other Elders saying that they had found. (They told us that they were calling to encourage us but it sounded an awful lot like bragging if you ask me.) Well we didn't want to be out done so we kept working as hard as we could and went by a ton of different people but either people weren't home or no one wanted to listen to us because we weren't having a whole lot of success at finding. Around the time it started getting dark and we were getting close to heading in for the night we decided to say a prayer and ask God for help so that we would be able to find. (At this point we weren't quite as worried about the ice cream.) As soon as we finished praying we decided to try by another name that didn't live too far from where we were at. When we knocked on his door it was amazing. Without even asking who we were he asked us if we wanted to come in and talk. When we got in and sat down he went straight to his table and pulled out a Book of Mormon. Elder Stephenson and I were both super shocked as he explained that he had been taught in the past but then the missionaries stopped coming. His wife that he has been with for 40 years died just a year ago and he had a lot of questions about the Plan of Salvation and also about the Book of Mormon. It was so crazy to see how through our prayer of faith at the end of the night lead us to someone who God has been preparing for the Gospel. After getting out both Elder Stephenson and I were shocked at what had just happened.
It's crazy to see how the difficult things in life seem to leave the deepest impressions on our memories. I had a super cool and random insight in the Book of Mormon about that so bear with me while I explain. In Jacob chapter 4 verse 1 Jacob is talking about how difficult it is to write things down on the plates. It's the only time in the scriptures when one of the prophets admits to it being hard. After realizing that I read the next verse that talks about how if they were to write on anything else it would "perish and vanish away". It all became clear to me. The things that are difficult in life are the things that usually leave the deepest impressions on us, especially when it helps us to grow. Things like a mission aren't necessarily easy at times but it is leaving a very deep impression on my life and there is no way these memories will ever "perish and vanish away" like other things that I thought were important that have turned out to be of not too much worth. I know that insight is super random and I wish I was there to explain it so you could get the full feeling but for me it was a pretty cool thought!
Welp. Times up! I hope you have a great week! Love you all from the bottom of mi corazon!
Love Elder Stone
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