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Hey
Family and Friends.
I hope
all is well and that everything is going as planned. Well transfer calls where
Saturday and Elder Humphreys and I are staying together in Ascarate. I’m not
Super excited but if I’m meant to be here then here’s where I will be. In the
white handbook it says to make it seem in your letters that everything is fine
and perfect, but I’m not going to lie, this week was a really hard one. The
worst part is the heat. It’s starting to reach 100 this past week and so it’s
very uncomfortable feeling to be riding a bike all day long. Add the sunburn
and the sweat and its kind of depressing.
Not
only that our area is starting to suffer. The Nava Lopez family (who where our
most progressing and solid family) ending up dropping us out of the blue. We
had some of the most powerful lessons with them that I have had on my mission
and so them telling me that they just are not interested was a blow to my
motivation. We also went park contacting the other day. Where we went and tried
to talk to people at Ascarate Park, which is the biggest park in El Paso, and I
don't think we will try that again. After getting yelled at by a Christian lady
who hates us because we follow Jesus TOO MUCH, instead of just having faith on
the "Grace" of Christ to be saved, and having person after person we
talked to just say, "No thanks, we don’t have time" as they sat there
watching their fishing rods that where anchored to the ground not move for 5
hours at a time. Even when I took the approach of just talking about fishing or
their life, or something that has nothing to do with a message we bring people
where still mean to us. We where out there for 3 hours just knowing that there
had to be 1 person there that needed us. Well there wasn’t.
The
hardest part of a mission is people ignoring you. I would much rather just have
people tell me that they are not interested any more or that they don’t want us
to come by anymore instead of never answering or returning calls or texts.
Making us having to go by their house at random times to catch them unawares.
But what’s worse is when you see someone who is home not answer the door after
seeing you. Even less active members of the church. I can't imagine how Christ
must have felt after performing miracle after miracle, and trying his hardest
to help people, just to have his own people reject and crucify him. That
thought is honestly one of the only things that keeps me going during the day. I
know that in other countries it is way worse for the missionaries but nobody is
the same and some people can deal with it better than others.
I
realized something this week when reading my P-blessing over again. It says
that I will be a great tool in helping people become re-activated in the
church. And its right after a part where it’s talking about the callings I
would have in the church if I remained faithful. I always just assumed that it meant in my
future callings later in life, but I have looked back on my most successful
moments of my mission so far and see the differences that God has made through
me in the lives of many less active families in the wards I have served in. We didn’t
have any investigators at church yet another week, but we had 6 less active
members who have been inactive in church for more than a year come back, and we
are one the edge of a breakthrough with many more. It really is an amazing
feeling when someone comes back into full activity and just realizes the
blessing that they where missing out on for all that time and to call us
Angels.
Well that’s
all for now.
-Love Elder
Stewart
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