I had a great time talking to my family. It was great to see
them again, after 3.25 months (Dec. 25 - Sep. 17 ~= 3.25 months). My mission is
going by so fast. We've already had one mission conference; I'm about halfway
through my second transfer in-field; there are only two days left in my first
year on my mission!
This week in my study of the Book of Mormon, I've been
nearing 3 Nephi 11. The suspense is killing me, but I've still got a few days
to go before I'm there. One thing that I learned is that secret combinations
are bad. I've said it before, but this time I'm actually applying it to myself.
The point of secret combinations is to hide your own evil works and to get out
of punishment for them. With that definition, it's not just knives in the dark
that count as secret combinations, it's any time you undertake to cover your
own sins. Secret combinations always detract from your own agency, and infringe
on the agency of others. And "when we undertake to cover our sins, [...]
in any degree of unrighteousness, behold, the heavens withdraw themselves; the
spirit of the Lord is grieved, and when it is withdrawn, Amen to [our]
priesthood or authority".
On Christmas Eve, we were harvesting in the morning, and we
had a miracle. We found someone who was hesitant to be baptized; she had
already been baptized, and she didn't feel like she needed to again. But she
decided to come to church. When we told her it was called "The Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints," she opened up and told us a story of
how a couple days ago, she had been invited to the same church by Cash
Monestine (an RM - returned 2 weeks ago, leaving for college this week) and she
said she thought it was a funny coincidence. We testified that it was not a
coincidence, and that it really is Christ's church, and God was giving her a
second opportunity to accept the invitation. It was an great experience.
Last Saturday, we were having a terrible day. We were
driving down extremely far south for the day, because we had an investigator to
see and a potential investigator to follow up with. We drove down with our
member; it turned out that the potential investigator gave us a fake address;
we decided to harvest until our appointment with the investigator. Then the
member said that he had to be home before the appointment could start. We tried
to call and reschedule with our investigator, but she said she couldn't get
there earlier; so we drove back north again to drop off our member. We
proceeded to look for another member to take out with us for half an hour, last
minute, but nobody could come. So we drove back south to get a
non-member-present lesson with her, and it turns out she had to cancel on us
because she was being held up. So just like that, we wasted 5 hours and 50
miles without anything to show for it. We still hadn't eaten or harvested for
an hour. We only had time to do one or the other before we had more
appointments, so we chose to sacrifice in order to be exactly obedient. That's
when the day started turning around, and we started seeing miracles. We had
three very amazing harvest blessings, and for the rest of the night we had
three amazing member present lessons, and three new investigators. What's funny
is that none of the three lessons we had were with the people we had scheduled
to see. I firmly believe that none of this would have happened if we had not
chosen to be exactly obedient. It was a very humbling experience, and it may
have been the best two hours I've had on my mission so far.
We're going to be doing an exchange some time this week, but
we don't know when or any of the details.
Thanks for everything!
Eldè Slade
Some Christmas lights both of my companion and I.
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