Monday, June 4, 2012

I'm Serving With All My Heart, Might, Mind, and Strength

Dearest family,

So let me start this letter with a story. So Elder Jensen is a sweet Elder and a really good missionary, but he is hilarious because he loves wakeboarding a ton! Anyways, there are a lot of lakes in this area and everytime Elder Jensen passes one he gets really trunky and lets out a big AWWWHHH MANNNN! It's a pretty funny inside joke we have. So when I heard about the volleyball team playing in Huntington Beach, all I could help to do was let out a big AWWWWHHHH MANNNN! What did they even do to deserve this California trip again? Well the Trek sounded awesome and I'm glad Aubrey had a good birthday! When I woke up June 1st the first thing I thought was OH YEAH happy birthday Aubrey! I sang for her while Elder Taylor was in the shower.

My time is a little short today, so I will kinda need to go fast. This week was not easy... remember how Elder Bills and I had 7 people on date for baptism like 3 weeks ago. Well now were down to 2. Alexa and Mindy are slipping further and further away, Farah won’t talk to us, and well a lot of stuff is just falling apart. I got pretty down on myself this week because a lot of investigators just started falling through the woodwork and I did EVERYTHING ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING I could think to do to help. Anyways though, even though a lot went wrong this week, a lot also went right. Elder Taylor and I WORKED HARD!!!  We taught 40 lessons this week. We found a ton of new investigators and just did a whole lot of good, but the best part was this week I was in tears as I prayed to my Heavenly Father about Alexa and Mindy.  That night I was really tired and I found an answer to my prayer. When I woke up the next morning, I hadn't remembered what I had written and a lot of it was about the week and stuff like that, but I had written at the very end that I WILL SEE ALEXA AND MINDY IN THE CELESTIAL KINGDOM!...really big and in all caps. I have so much faith that whether it's me or some other person in the future, the Lord will answer my many prayers on there behalf.

I also kinda got really down on myself because I realized that I am a quarter of the way through my mission, and I have only baptized 1 person. I know that numbers don’t matter but I remembered in some blessing that I would convert many. So anyways, I was getting down on myself for that too, but then I read PMG chapter 1 and read what makes a successful missionary. Mom, Dad, family, everyone, I promise I’m trying to become the best that I can be. I’m serving with all my heart, might, mind, and strength. I know it doesn't matter how many people I baptize, just as long as I’m doing EVERYTHING THAT I CAN DO.

So this letter is weird I know, but I really couldn't be happier! I HOPE YOU KNOW THAT!!! Here are some of the sweet things that happened this week. We took out a priest with us named Tauivi.  He is hilarious and we got him to tract and knock on doors with us! He embarrassed himself sometimes but he did really good, and we helped him get a whole lot better too. I got my Adventure Time painting, someone gave me a Missouri Tigers shirt, a Michael Jordan North Carolina Bball jersey, and a “for dummies” bobble head thingy.

This letter is stinky but I gotta go. I have to go get one last signature today for my visa application because the radiologist was lame and didn’t sign it right! So it will probably be another month before I get to New Zealand now, but that’s okay.

Love,

Elder Ward

p.s. Once again, for a third time, I’m sorry if this letter was a downer at all. I can’t stress enough that even though it was a little hard this week the Lord is helping me soooooo much and I don’t think I've been happier in my whole life.

p.s.s. We had ward conference and president Keyes had us read 3 Nephi 11 and I think in verse 15 it says…”then Nephi rose up” (he changed that to all the elders names and I put my name in there instead) and then Elder Ward rose up. I'm so glad I’ve risen up and been set apart for 2 years to preach the gospel! I know this church is true and tell Trevor I’m sorry. I will respond next week.


No comments:

Post a Comment