Hello everyone! I want you all to know that it is freezing today! It is currently -16 degrees C in downtown London, Canada. The wind is somewhere around 40 km/hr, and it is 98% humidity. For all of those in summy warm mild wintered Utah, it means you have no idea how cold it is! Woohooo!! No no, but Ontario is wonderful. I like my mission a lot thus far. It is a lot different than Utah, thats for sure, but all is well. As of tonight I will have hit my official 1 week mark in the field, haha! I'm catching on really really fast, its great. Whenever the AP's or Zone Leaders call to check on Elder Lee and I, Elder Lee always says "Man, training is sooo overrated. I haven't had to do anything yet! Elder Porter is already a seasoned and trained missionary!" Haha, so it makes me wayyy happy to know that some legitimate missionaries already have a good opinion of me. But lets be hoenst, none of us missionaries would be anything without the guidence of the spirit. We would just be nerdy annoying teenagers trudging through subzero temperature and blizzards wasting some of the most valuable years of our life. I want to start off by saying that the spirit is there. And if you don't think the spirit is guiding you in your life, it is simply because you don't know where to look for it. You simply haven't recognized it in your life. I challange everyone reading this to take just a few seconds and think about how your prayers have been answered, or how you have been blessed by the guidence of the spirit. We just don't all know how to recognize the Lords hand in our life. I feel like if we really spent time learning how the Lord has blessed us, then our appreciation and understanding of the gospel would skyrocket. That is one of the best things I have done while I've been here. I've learned how to recognize the Lords hand in my life.
Saturday was a good day. Our numbers lookded great. We had 2 new investigators on Saturday alone, and taught 4 investigator lessons, all to strangers on the street who decided to stop and listen to us. Our goal is 10 investigator lessons a week, and 3 new investigators a week, so this was a real good day. We stopped by a former investigator who has been dropped lots of times over the past few years. He simply hasn't decided to keep his commitments or to come to church or admit that he knows he needs to be baptized. Elder Lee and I decided to visit him. He graciously let us in, and was real nice to us. He started talking to us, and it was our time to respond to his questions and statements, and I looked at my companion because I wasn't quite sure what to say. Elder Lee started to say something and then stopped. He turned his head towards me and gave me the "missionary eye." It is the look you give your companion when you don't know what to say or get stuck, haha. I was really confused as to why he gave it to me, becuase I knew exactly what to say. So I started replying to this mans questions and things he said. Elder Lee didn't say ANYTHING for honestly 20 minutes. I was super confused and a little frustrated that he wasn't helping me out at all. The conversation went really great. He ended telling Elder Lee and I that he had been meeting the the Jehovah's Witness missionaries again, and that he felt like he was at a crossroads in his life. He needed to chose their church or ours. I told him my own personal spiritual conversion story, about the difficult times I had as a sophomore in high school, trying to decide which direction I wanted to take my life in. I related it to his situation, and opened the Book of Mormon to Moroni 10:4-5. It is Mormoni's promise at the end of the Book of Mormon. He tells us to pray after we have heard these things, and the truth of it WILL be manifest unto you by the power of the Holy Spirit. For by the Holy Spirit ye may know the truth of all things. I bore powerful testimony to him that this promise can work for any quiestions we have in our life. The spirit was sooo ridiculously strong, and he didn't say anything the whole time I was talking. He just sat there pondering what I had said. I felt like we should hurry and close with a prayer and leave. I asked him to say it and he accepted. He sincerely prayed to our Heavenly Father to please recieve an answer as to which church he should join. Elder Lee and I then quickly left so he could feel the spirit that he had while we were there. The second we got outisde, I turned to Elder Lee, slightly frustrated, and asked "Why the heck didn't you help me out or say anything at all?!" Elder Lee replied and said that he felt prompted not to say anything, and that that was the first time he had ever seen a missionary present the spirit or the gospel in a way that it got through to that man. He felt like I had in me what that man needed to hear. It made sense. And I'm so incredibly grateful to my Heavenly Father for blessing us with promptings, and with the spirit. It makes our work possible. We as misisonaries have done everything we can for this man. It is completely up to him now. He is accountable for whatever decision he choses. That is as far as my job goes. I obviously hope and pray that he choses what he knows is best. I know he will experience more happiness and blessings if he choses to be baptized.
I have another cool story from last night as well. Elder Lee and I had prayed to know which street in specific we should try tracting. Tracting is usually very ineffective. So we were wanting to recieve inspiration as to where EXACTLY we should go to find one of God's elect children that had been prepared to hear our message. After our prayer we both looked at the map. And absolutely nothing came to me. Nothing at all. Elder Lee pointed to a street. He said, "I didn't feel much, but I think this is the right direction we need to head in". That was good enough for me, so we made it our plan for Sunday night to tract that street. Sunday night finally came, and we headed out for that street. It was about an hour walk, and on the way, I just felt like that wasn't the right street. I felt like we were going in the right direction, but not to the right destination. It was kinda weird. We we kept on walking, and as we were getting closer to the street we had decided on, we passed a street on our left. I felt a super strong impression, or had a really strong and persistant thought that we needed to knock on this streeet instead. I felt like us going in this direction had simply lead us to this street. God wanted to show me what it is like to have specific spiritual promptings, because I had been asking him for specific promptings all in my prayers during the last week. I stopped Elder Lee and yelled through the wind that we needed to go down this street instead. He agreed, and sure enough, the first door we knock on, a super nice looking lady lets us in and has a wonderful chat with us. She invited us back to learn more, and I feel like success is definately a possibility. Especially with the Lord on our side. All it took was ONE door. Haha! The spirit is the greatest thing ever. I know that Heavenly Father will lead us and guide us through the spirit as we strive to become tools in his hands. If we humble ourselfs, and agree to do His work in His way, why would he withhold miricles? He wouldn't. I've said it before and I'll say it again. If we sincerely do all we can to do His work in His way, we are invinsible. Unstoppable. The spirit will guide us and tell us to do things we wouldn't be able to do on our own. I know that the power of prayer is real, and that God loves us as individual childre, and wants to helps us succeed. He is always with all of us. We just need to be at a place in our lives that we are willing and able to hear his promptings and tender quiet voice of guidence. I love my mission and the gospel so much. Whenever I get discouraged I just think of the Saviors atonement. He sacraficed everything for us. He has gone through everything that we have. And so much more. He understands how we feel, and he wants us to keep going. All is well. God will bless us. Please keep praying for me, and for all the other missionaries. We feel your strength that you command the heavens to grant unto us. It is real. Love you all so much. Thank you for all the love and support that you send me.
With all of God's love,
Elder Porter
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