July 15, 2009

Howdy,
Well I sat down to write and then tried pondering for a little while but I’m still not coming up with much to report this week.

Things are going great. All the people that we are teaching are doing fantastic. We are working hard and seeing great things from doing so. Last Friday was Zone Conference in Broomall, PA. It was my final Zone Conference! Pretty sad. It was a great meeting and we put alot into it and in turn got alot of great things out. At the end of the meeting they always have the departing missionaries bear their final testimony. It was a pretty weird experience. In the past I had always just sat back and listened as my friends spoke about their missions and how fast the time had flown by and all that they learned. As they would be speaking I’d be thinking ‘wow I’m really sad to see them leave but thank goodness I have a while to go before I’m up there.’ But time crept up on me. When it was time to finally go up and speak it didn’t feel real at all. I really can’t believe it is almost time to go home. It seems like I’ve been doing this for so long and I’ve completely immersed myself in it that I don’t really remember what it was like to be back at home. I’d rather stay here.  Oh well.

Nick is doing great and he is still ready for his baptism on the 26th. Just working through the last couple weeks before baptism and usually those are the toughest ones, satan will do anything to get in the way.  Vanessa, who is the woman in the story I told you last week or the week before, is doing great. She is excited to come to church and continue to learn more. Answers to prayers are the best. Once God has answered your prayer you have absolutely no need to question anything else. I love it.
We have a few more wonderful people that we are working with and this week is going to be really important to see what happens with them in the future. I’ll update you next week.

I love you.

“Every event, every encounter, every disaster, however despairing it may seem to the outward eye, may be met with spiritual success. A temporal tragedy need never result in a spiritual defeat. To the contrary, such “tragedies” have often proven the springboard for a sublime spiritual victory.  One man accepts his deafness by blaming God; another, Beethoven, scores the Ninth Symphony. One woman with loss of sight sees only darkness; another with greater vision, Helen Keller, becomes a beacon to a blinded world. One man responds to his disease with loss of faith; another, Job, declares, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him” (Job 13:15). One man loses his wife and in the process his zest for life; another, Robert Browning, draws ever deeper from the well to pen with compelling passion poetry of divine dimensions.   One man may respond to the seemingly disastrous events of life with vengeance and venom; another may respond with humble submissiveness to God’s will, an appreciation for life as it is, and a firm resolve to be better.  For one, life’s challenges and tragedies become stumbling blocks; for the other, the become stepping-stones.”   From The Infinite Atonement by Tad R. Callister

-Elder Mike