Never suppress a generous thought

How come all your emails lately have been on Tuesday instead of Monday?
Because I’m in the VC and I have the crummy schedule where almost all of my Pdays are Tuesdays instead of Monday.

Can you share with us a story of when you bore witness of a particular gospel principal and the spirit was there and felt by everyone?
The other day I was working in the VC and Hna Falcon came and asked me to start a movie for them and their investigator Carlos. She told me that they were going to watch this Mormon Message http://www.lds.org/media-library/video/mormon-messages?lang=eng&query=easter#2009-04-14-none-were-with-him. She said that the point was to talk about Christ and how through the Atonement He can help us overcome addictions. So, I introduced the movie and afterwards when I was closing it I look him straight in the face and told him that because Christ was alone we never have to be, He knows exactly what we feel everyday, and that I know that Christ has the power to help him overcome his addiction to cigarettes.  I don’t exactly remember what I said but I felt the spirit really powerfully, enough so that it made me kind of uncomfortable, so I left after sharing my testimony. Hna Falcon and Aquino talked to Carlos for a while and then they invited me to come back so they could close the door while their ward mission leader gave him a blessing. During the blessing they talked about focusing on the savior when he felt tempted to smoke. I remember the picture I’d been carrying around in my backpack since Elder Ballard came to the MTC. Elder Ballard told us to focus on the Savior to help us overcome rejection and told us to carry around a picture to help. Anyways, right after I thought of MY photo I thought of other pictures I could give to him that had less personal sentimental value for me. Then I remember a quote Hna Noble really likes, “Never suppress a generous thought.” So, I awkwardly told everyone not to move after the blessing and ran into the back to grab the picture out of my backpack. I told Carlos what it was and why it was all wrinkled even though it’s laminated and told him to keep it with him now. I think it meant a lot to him and hopefully it will help. At least I know it is going to better use now than it would have being put in my scrapbook in a few months.

This week was really busy, but I can’t help but feel discouraged anyways. None of the people I’m teaching over the phone in the Visitor Center have been doing anything. Guy has passed his six months to live mark, and still feels great. It is a huge miracle, but he’s still hesitant to refer to God as more than a vague spirit who’s existence is relative to your own experience. We talked a lot about church attendance hopefully he went this Sunday.
Dulce and Pascual have sort of put the brakes on everything, and we’re really not sure when they’re going to be baptized. Dulce was talking about aliens last time I met with her. She was talking about things she’d read on the Internet about how every culture has stories about visitors from other planets, and how science says one thing but religion another. I was tempted to tell her that science doesn’t disagree with religions only crazies, but I didn’t. Then Pascual was going off on how he doesn’t want Dulce spending so much time with the church because she’s a minor and shouldn’t be out that much. Ridiculous.
We went on splits a few times this week which we both feel really upped our ability to teach more lessons with our limited time. We’ll try to do more this week.
The ward council is still acting like a bunch of jerks. They announced that they were changing the way we do dinners, which wasn’t too much of a surprise, we had told our ward mission leader that since our meal coordinator has gone inactive maybe we should give someone else the calling, and it would be really great if they could find someone who’d be willing to call less actives and set up dinner appointments with them. Instead the second counselor announced that now the missionaries would be eating with a different family every day of the week for the whole month. So, each family would be feeding us 4 times in the same month. I made him pretty upset when I raised my hand in relief society and announced that we didn’t want to do our dinners that way. I know there’s only a few families in the ward that can afford to feed us 4 times in the same month and I also know that even if they can afford it it will be a huge burden time wise. The logic of the bishopric is that if we visit the same family 4x we can follow up better on invitations we leave them to help with missionary work. I’ll be continuing to pass around the regular dinner calendar, though. I need the sisters in the ward to come out with us for visits not hate us for being at their house every Tuesday.

Also, our mission President has outlawed all music for a month. It’s supposed to be a “fast,” but I’m pretty sure that mandatory fasts are just starvation.

Anyways, love you all. Pray that I don’t kick any more bathroom walls in the middle of district meeting, and then have to speak on being a consecrated missionary. I’ve made it this far with being obedient and overall a good sport, but I think they’re going to try and break me here at the end.
Sorry, that I started spiritually and then ended complaining… Just know I’m here because I love Jesus Christ a lot. I know that missionary work is important. More important than all the things I enjoy, but it doesn’t always make me not cranky about it. Someday I will be like Paul and say, “Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.”
LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE YOU!
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