Monday, January 13, 2014

Elder Joseph Anderson's Mission Letter

Well this week was pretty tough. We have been working really hard with two investigators for a while now and they both came to church last week and we had a baptismal date set for this Saturday but when we went to meet with them on Saturday, neither of them were at their house and subsequently neither of them came two church yesterday. This week my companion and I have been working hard to find prepared people to teach but for some reason we are just not having any success. We have did service for an investigator for over two hours one day and tough him the first lesson and we have tried to go back twice to keep teaching him but both times we have seen him hide from us when he saw us coming down the road. And then his family tells us he is not there and I´m not sure if we are supposed to tell them they are lieing because we saw him run and hide. But its just a sucking feeling when you try your best with people and they first lie to you and tell you they are interested and want to learn more and will read and pray and go to church but none of its true because they hide from you for the next visit and tell their family to say they arent home. So yeah thats frustrating. That has happened with about 4 of our investigators. Everybody here tells you they are interesting and they will do all of the things they commit to do but they won´t. I would honestly rather have people just tell me they don´t like us or they don´t think our message is true so that we can either answer their questions or move on to someone else. But when people just lie its almost impossible to make any progress and we use alot of time with people who really aren´t interested in what we have to say instead of finding the people the Lord has prepared. Regardless I am still happy to share the message of the restored gospel to every ear that will listen and I know that if I am working hard and being obedient the Lord will take care of the rest. Sometimes my companion and the zone leaders tell me that if we meet somebody and after talking with them for a few minutes and getting to know them, we don´t think they will every progress to baptism for whatever reason we shouldn´t try to make an appointment or come back to teach them the first lesson. But the truth is every single person, who is willing, deserves the chance to here the message of the restoration of the  gospel of Jesus Christ. Yes ther are people who are pepared by God specifically for us to find and teach and we shouldnt spend weeks teaching people who never follow through with their commitments. And yes there are people who sound or apppear as though they won{t ever progress after just getting to know them for a few minutes, but if somebody,no matter how old, catholic, or whatever else, is willing to listen to the message of the restoration or another teaching of the Lord´s gospel, it is our duty to share it.
I am grateful for the opportunity to be a missionary of the Lord for two years of my life and I know that it is going to be over before I know it. I know that sometimes life is hard and things don{t always work out the way we want them to and a lot of the time we don´t know the reason why. But I know that the Lord is there for us as long as we are worthy and obedient and that he will take care of things in the long run. I know that the purpose of this life is to find happiness through principles in the gospel and to learn and gain experience to take with you in the next life. I can´t remember exactly where but I love the scripture in Doctrine and Covenants that says we will take our knowledge with us to the next life and the more knowledge we gain in this life the greater our advantage will be in the next life. A scripture that also goes along with this scripture is another one in D and C that tells us not to be idle with our time and not to sleep too much but to go to bed early and wake up early. I know that I only have one chance to serve a mission and I want to learn as much as possible while I am here and also work as hard as possible. I know that this life is short and we can´t get back wasted time; therefore, we should be productive with every minute of every day so that we will have an advantage in the life to come. I regret the time I have wasted in my life being idle and lazy, but I am determined to use the rest of my life to streangthen my relationship with my Heavenly Fanther and Jesus Christ, enjoying and spending time with my family and friends, and using every hour that I can being active, productive, and wise. AND HAVING FUN OFCOURSE!!!!!!!

 I love all of you very much and I am very gratful for all your love and prayers.

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