January 31, 2011

The past week has without a doubt been the hardest week of my mission. We had a baptism scheduled for Sunday (yesterday). Elder Lee and I found her, and taught her everything she needed to know to be baptized. She accepted everything, loved having us over, LOVED church, was actually stoked to pay tithing, and cried more than once because of the ridiculously strong spirit we were blessed to bring with us. She even passed the baptismal interview with President Brower. Everything was set and ready to go. She asked me to baptize her, and obviously I was very excited. It makes it all worth it to see the fruits of your labors. It really does. When you see your hard work and dedication changing peoples lives for the better, it makes it all okay. Well, as the week went on, our investigator started ignoring us. We started to get scared but we assumed everything was still on because she has been so excited in the past. Time went on, and on Friday we were on a bus transfer in downtown London (out of our area) and we happened to run into our investigator! Definitely inspired, and we talked to her and everything seemed just like normal. Everything was still good and Sunday was still on. We set up an app. for Saturday night, and that evening we called just to confirm with her. She told us that she doesn't want to see us anymore, and that she is not getting baptized. That was really hard on me. How could she deny what she has felt? Everything we have taught her is to her own damnation unless she changed her mind sometimes before the judgment. It is so sad. I really love her; I've felt Christ's love for her. And she chose not to accept it. So sad.

Not only that, but our teaching pool went from 8 to 2 in 1 day. Yeahhh. Not cool. Super rough. Right now it is -27 with wind chill and everything outside. So it has been tough. It is a lot harder when nothing is showing visible success. I know my time and effort is not wasted, but it is hard to stay optimistic and positive when things are like this. I'm doing my best, working really, really hard, and trying to trust in the Lord and continue to learn, improve, and grow through activating the atonement of Jesus Christ.

Well, it is still a privilege, be it a good week or a bad week, so serve the Lord like I am doing now. Keep praying for the missionaries and I'll keep doing my best. Love you all. Next week will be better. I know it will be.

Love,

Elder Porter