Hello and good morning, once again, my dear friends and familia! This is Elder Z.S.Weber, reporting in once again from the Prairie Ridge/Taft Canyon Wards in Fort Collins, Colorado. This week has gone fairly alright for me and my companion, Elder Anderson. I will admit, though, that I am wiped. The work here in our areas is very taxing, both on the body and on the soul. By the end of the day, I barely have the energy to stay awake through my bedside prayers, and pass right away the second my head touches the pillow. At least we can say that I'm getting the full eight hours of sleep in...though that only seems to make me more tired through the day. Oh well...
So, on to the week!
This week, we started off with an interesting new experience for me. As you might know from my past emails, I've had the chance several times throughout my life as a missionary to be companions with a District Leader. As such, I've often been dragged along to the District Leader Counsel they would have. I never really knew what went on in those meetings, because that was for my companion to know and for me to find out on my own. All I knew was it was a time for extra studying for the non-District Leaders in attendance. Well, now was my first time to be on the other side of that situation, now that I'm a District Leader myself.
To be honest, the meeting went fairly well. Perhaps it was because both I and my fellow District Leader, Elder Clark, are new, and so they went easy on us, or perhaps it was because Elder Klain and Elder Noh (the Zone Leaders) handle the work a lot more simply than past Zone Leaders have. Whatever the reason, the meeting actually went very well. We agreed to focus on returning to the basics of missionary work and to stay focused on our work. Too often on my mission, I've seen missionaries pulling trainings or lessons from resources from I don't know where, and it often causes a disruption in the actual teaching. That needs to change. We have the Book of Mormon and Preach My Gospel for a reason. Use them.
Wednesday was a fairly nice day, all things considered. We met up as a zone once more for a Zone Meeting at the Fort Collins Stake Center. As we had stated in our District Leader Counsel, our focus for this next transfer is to return to the basics of missionary work and improve on our most basic skills in teaching. Near the end of the meeting, we had everyone break up into two-on-two groups (companionship-on-second companionship) and practice teaching investigators by using only the basics of missionary work. After listening to some of the discussions around me, and what knowledge was being thrown around, I reaffirmed my previous belief. We need to use the Book of Mormon and Preach My Gospel more.
Unfortunately, the rest of the day wasn't so good, as I came down with some stomach flu of a kind that put me out of commission for the rest of the day. Luckily, by the time Thursday rolled around, I was up again and ready to go to work. And work we did, as we had several appointments to get through throughout the day. The first was with an elderly man named Roland who had been meeting with the missionaries for quite some time now. We brought one of the Ward Missionaries, Brother Haynes, with us, which really made the meeting go well. Brother Haynes was really able to connect with Roland in a way that us missionaries, being so much younger than Roland, can't.
The next lesson we had that day was with Brian and Beth, who I believe I mentioned in my last email. As Beth's baptism was happening on this past Saturday, we had Elders Klain and Noh come and interview her to see if she truly was ready to enter into the covenant of baptism. After a few minutes of meeting with her, the Zone Leaders agreed that she was ready, and then left to let us get to teaching again. With that, we got to teaching the final lesson, which is the Laws and Ordinances of the Church. We talked about what the Priesthood is and how men like us and Brian wield it, as well as the importance of serving in callings in our Wards and going to the temple for the sacred ordinances found there.
Towards the end of the night, we made one last meeting with an investigator the past missionaries had been teaching often, Jenette. Like Beth and Brian, we finished up teaching Jenette the lessons, though she still feels she needs a bit more time before she can get baptized. It seems that she wants to finish the Book of Mormon, cover to cover, first before she makes the big leap into official membership in the Church. We merely encouraged her to keep reading, but also encouraged her to not wait too long. I've seen many who enjoyed the church, but were happy to just sit back and ease into the transfer. Hopefully, the same is not true for Jenette.
Friday went along fairly slowly, but Saturday was great. Saturday, as I've already stated several times, was Beth's baptism. We had invited several of our other investigators to come and see the baptism with us, but sadly none showed. Still, it was a great experience, and the spirit was felt so strongly in there. For some reason, there were about ten missionaries that showed up for the baptism. The two from Lakeside in Loveland were expected—that's where Beth actually lives, and it'll be where she'll now attend most of the time. However, where the other six elders came from I'm still trying to figure out. It was a wonderful service, though, and I'm glad that I was able to experience it once more.
So, yeah, that was my week. From meetings to teachings to baptisms, it was a great week. Of course, there were some low moments in the week, but those only made the high moments all the more great. And that brings me to my Spiritual Thought of the Week.
This week, I would like to do something different than normal. I came to the realization this week that unless someone takes out all of the servers in Google or something odd like that, the Internet is going to last for a VERY long time. Therefore, these emails of mine, being read by those it was initially sent to or by those that stop by the blog my mom has created for me so lovingly (Love ya, Mom!), may actually still be around several years from now, perhaps even after I've had kids, or even maybe after my kids have kids (that's a scary thought...two whole generations of Zacharites running around the world...). Anyways, for this Spiritual Thought, I'd like to bear my testimony to my future children or grandchildren, as well as all of you that are already reading my blog in present time.
My sons, my daughters, my dear grandchildren. There will be times in your lives when trials will appear, when the burden you are forced to carry through life gets ever heavier, when all the world seems to fight back against everything that you stand for and believe in. You will face abuse—physical, verbal, mental, or otherwise—and will be scorned for who and what you are. As a missionary serving in the Lord's vineyard in Colorado, I can attest that this abuse is terrible. There have been many times, after a long night of being shunned and rejected by those around me, that I have laid in bed and wondered to myself why I was even still on a mission.
Let me now tell you, my children, why I was still on a mission. Even in spite of the terrible trials that surrounded me in my life, I was able to gather strength through my knowledge and faith in the truth. God is real. He truly is our Heavenly Father, and He loves and watches over all of us. He has promised us that though we may face trials and adversities from time to time, "[our] adversity and [our] afflictions shall be but a small moment; And then, if [we] endure it well, God shall exalt [us] on high." (Doctrine and Covenants 121: 7-8) How great a promise from the Lord! That if we endure our trials but for a while longer, we will be raised up in glory by our Father in Heaven; we shall triumph over all our foes.
Of course, this road will not be easy. But then again, nothing that ever is worth much in this life truly is easy. Indeed, surviving the buffeting storms around us in this world is impossible for mere mortal men to overcome. But with Christ as our Master, the captain at the helm of the ships of our lives, we will sail through the storms. We will still be battered, but we will make it through to see the sun shining again. These things I know to be true. Stay strong in the faith, my children. There is no other way to truly find lasting joy and peace in this life than through this faith. I know this to be true, in the sacred and hallowed name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
—Elder Z.S.Weber
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