Monday, March 7, 2016

This week was rough.. First of all, Alex, the investigator that said he would be baptized said he couldn't meet with us and we had to reschedule and then I got sick and we had to find a babysitter for me and someone that could go out with Sister Vaaie. Then they went to go see Alex and he said he wanted to learn everything on his own and wasn't ready to be baptized and tried to give the Book of Mormon back and weren't able to make another appointment. We've been trying to find a time to meet with him again but it hasn't worked out yet. It's also been hard to talk to people because the weather has been bad so no one is outside that we can talk to when we are walking between appointments.

So it's been a hard week but also a week full of blessings!

There is a letter called the Ricciardi letter that I have been reading. It's a letter written by someone who, on his mission, had a companion named Elder Ricciardi. Elder Ricciardi was his trainer and a very strong missionary. He talks about his experiences with his trainer and all the crazy things that he went through during the first part of his mission. He talks about how annoyed he was with his trainer and how he would stop constantly to pray to make sure that they were going the right way or doing the right thing and would often change their path because the answer to Elder Ricciardi's prayer was that they needed to be somewhere else. There were many times when they would have a prompting to go somewhere where every single door was slammed in their faces. Not one person in the area they were prompted to go to accepted to hear their message. The missionary who wrote the letter talked about how discouraged he would be and how upset it would make him when that happened. He said he would be upset and confused as to why they were told to go to that place if no one there was ready to receive the message of the restored gospel. He said that on those days Elder Ricciardi seemed to be happier and more motivated to work.

Ricciardi explained to him one day why he was so happy about people not accepting their message. He would say that that was how he knew they were where they were supposed to be. He said that it was to see if they could be trusted. Heavenly Father asks us to follow the promptings we receive to see if we can be trusted. As missionaries we are asked to be exactly obedient. The weeks where you don't teach as much, you get sick, and you feel like giving up because no one wants to listen to your message are the most important ones. If we are able to get through those weeks, not just get through but work hard, we will have Heavenly Fathers trust. I know that if I'm doing all that I can do and continue to have faith that we are where we need to be and working hard we will be able to find those people that Heavenly Father has prepared. But we won't be able to find and teach those people if we can't be trusted to teach them.

We also had a baptism last week that I have been thinking about a lot.

I've realized that I'm not here to help people get baptized. That's just a step that we are helping them take. What I'm doing as a missionary is helping people go to the temple. Sister Vaaie  and I have the wonderful blessing of seeing the temple every morning when we leave our apartment and every night when we get home. It's a reminder of what we are here for and what the goal is for each person we teach.

Sometimes in the morning when I'm eating breakfast I look out the window and think about the people we are teaching and I imagine seeing them there. Bonnie is so excited to go to the temple. We are helping her get in contact with people that can help her do family history work so she can have names to take to the temple and do baptisms for the dead. She is going to go for the first time his week! We are so excited for her! And soon she will be able to go through the temple and make even more covenants with our Heavenly Father. That's why I'm here. Every time we start to teach someone new I don't imagine seeing them in a baptismal font, I imagine seeing them in the temple. I can't wait for Bonnie to be able to go to the temple and do her family's work and be sealed in the temple with her husband. It's such a blessing that we have to be able to go to the temple and have those amazing blessings that have been given to us. I love the temple!!

So yesterday we had a huge wind/dust storm and it was crazy! Never in my life have I ever experienced so much wind! Usually from any place that we are in in our area we can look out at the city and see the strip but there was so much dust that we couldn't see anything past our area. Later on I was trying to take a picture of the strip when the dust had settled a little but it was still hard to see.. Instead I just got a pretty picture.. But it shows what this place looks like when there is a storm. It's usually completely clear skies but it was cloudy all day and because of the wind the sky changed so much throughout the day. We even got a little rain! Not very much so not enough to satisfy my need for rain but it was still a blessing to see some rain here in this dry place!