September 1, 2014 – Ups and downs

Dear Mom, Dad, Lauren, and Ian,

Happy anniversary!! I'm glad that you finally had some quiet time to enjoy together.  The rain let up a little bit now, but there's still a bit of storm passing by. About P-days, well, Pres. Corbitt is deciding what we can't and can do during P-days with a lot of prayer and fasting. He relies a LOT of revelation from the Lord to help him in his calling. But until he gets and gives us an answer, things are pretty strict as to what we can and can't do.

Well, this week hasn´t been one of my best. Thankfully, it was the little things this week that kept it from being my worst.  ^_^  Well, our numbers have become a little low. Our citas and back up plans this week have been falling through much more than usual. To top it off, our investigators that we have aren´t keeping up with commitments, not even our baptismal date, Kelvin, (which, as well, has fallen through) has gone to church yet. So, that adds to a bit of frustration.  :P  What´s more, we went contacting to look for more people to teach, with no success.  A lot of people here are Jehova´s Witnesses and they won´t give us the time of day, usually.

On the positive, however, some cool stuff happened this week. Just this past Tuesday, the mother (not a member) of a youth in the ward passed away and just hours after she died, I was asked to share a spiritually comforting message to his family who also weren´t members. When we got there, I saw the young man whose mother just passed away and he looked at peace compared to his other family members who were understandably sobbing. The first cool thing is that this young man has incredible faith in the Plan of Salvation. He knew where his mother was going and maybe even felt that she would accept the gospel there. The second cool thing was how I came upon sharing the message. While looking through the scriptures for a comforting message to share, I remembered a short section in D and C that I had found just that morning, section 137 verses 7 and 8. It was perfect! I shared those verses and bore a very spiritual testimony about the Plan of Salvation to this family. It was a very special experience for me.  ^_^ I had gone to 3 other occasions like this before, but this was the first one I had formally spoken at.

Well, the things about not finding people to teach have gotten a bit better as of yesterday. We went on a splits with the ward and our zone leaders came and helped out. We now have a lot of less-actives and some references to visit now! If not investigators, reactivating less-actives are just as important.

I sure hope that we can improve this week! I haven´t given up yet. Also, good luck in all your new callings Mom, Dad, Lauren, Richard, and Ian! I guess the Lord has lots of plans for us! Talk to you all next week!

Thank you for everything!  Love you all!!!

-Elder Froude

P.S.
Finally! Pictures from last week's zone activity where there was a storm and it flooded.  Best zone activity ever!!!  The hermanas are in my district.

My dream of playing in the rain and flood was fulfilled!