Pages

Monday, September 30, 2013

Receive No Witness Until After The Trial Of Your Faith

September 30, 2013

Hello Everyone,

This week has been one of many highs and lows, but I made it through alive! I realized the other day the importance of being a leader, not a follower. When I get lazy and unmotivated sometimes, I tend to coast and just follow after others. We cannot coast, we must "keep moving forward" like Walt Disney once said. I was reading over my patriarchal blessing, and it talks about how I will lead others down paths of righteousness. I cannot do that by merely following others, it will not work.

I have been praying recently for an opportunity to meet and teach a family. The other day we were tracting during painfully unproductive hours 7-9:00 PM, and we stopped and prayed for guidance. As we prayed, we saw a family moving in to the home across the street from us. We went over and offered to help them move in, and they accepted! We weren't able to share a message with them that evening, but we offered to come back the next day to continue to help them move in, and we set up an appointment.

I went on a last minute exchange with an elder after district meeting on Wednesday. After we arrived in Sparta, we went out tracting on a predetermined street. It wasn't going very well, and we were approaching another street. I decided that we were going to keep tracting this street, and that we wouldn't go down the other street. As we got closer, I realized there was only one house on that street. Finally, for whatever reason, I got over myself, and we went and knocked on the door of the one house on the street. A teen answered and we were able to visit with him and teach him! I didn't realize at the time that I was being tested whether or not I was going to go down the street, but we did and we were blessed! Later we were able to visit with the family that we helped move the night before, and we continued to help them move in. After we were done moving, we shared a quick message with them. It was great! Hopefully they will begin to show interest in our religion, but if not, maybe their hearts will be open sometime in the future because of our work with them.

We have been able to do a lot of service this week. We set up a hospital bed in a members home, mowed a lawn of a disabled member, and pulled weeds in our apartment complex for a potential investigator. Even though we often aren't able to teach during these service opportunities, we are able to help make a difference in others lives. When we were pulling weeds with the potential investigator, we were led eventually to a really great discussion about God and religion. It helped too that at the time, a different religious group were out tracting our apartment complex ;) Afterwards she fed us, and gave us Diet Coke. SO GOOD! Hopefully we will be able to continue to visit with and teach her.

This week our 10-year-old baptismal candidate and his father cancelled their appointment again. We are still holding out for October 20th, but we will have to wait and see. We did however get the opportunity to visit with our spanish speaking investigator. We have been trying to get in contact with her for a while now, with no success, so this was a great moment! We had a very quick visit, but we were able to reestablish contact.

Today we received our transfer emails, and my companion and I will no longer be serving together in Sparta, Wisconsin. I will be staying here in Sparta. I am very saddened, but I knew that it was going to happen eventually. I am sure that things will work out great with my new companion but I am scared out of my mind! Change and starting over is always scary and stressful. I know that this is what needs to happen though, for whatever reason.

Thank you all so much for your love and support. I love hearing from all of you, and what is going on back home! I hope you are all doing well, and that this will be a great week for us all. Talk to you next week, I love and miss you all!

Best Wishes,

Elder Kyle William Andrews

No comments:

Post a Comment