boom!

So this past week has been real good. Been up and down, but good. The Lord has blessed us. We had one of the most amazing “coincidences” I’ve seen in a long time. Only coincidence if I didn’t know the hand of the Lord was involved. I’ll try not to get too into the details, but basically while we were planning one night for the following day, it became very apparent that we needed to end up on a particular street. Bristol Street. A less active we’ve never met lives there, and we randomly found a former investigator that lived on it too. They way we came across these two names was a large “coincidence”, so I knew there was something there. Some purpose.

So we got there eventually without a great deal of time unfortunately. And … this is funny. Neither of the addresses we had for the two names even existed!! I was like, you gotta be kidding me. We later found out that one is in the next town over ( I think), and the other we wrote down wrong. Anyway, we stood there for a moment like, well geeze, what the heck? We’d planned to tract that street anyway since we felt so strong that we needed to go over there, but we didn’t have much time at that point. It was getting to where it would have been real easy just say eh, lets just move on to the next thing. It was getting dark, it was already really cold, etc. But I said to Elder Pikyavit lets at least knock on one door in case we came out here for some reason or purpose or whatever. So we went and knocked on the door closest to the address that we wrote down wrong.

This young Latino guy answered the door. He gave us a funny little smirk and said I’ll be right back, and shut the door. We looked at each other, wondering if this fella was actually coming back. We looked at our watch. 5:55. Okay, we’ll give him till 6. Just in case. Well he came back out with his coat on a few minutes later. This guy’s Dad is a less active member that we’ve run into once or twice who lives down in Wethersfield (1 town south). He’s on a great big serach for SOMETHING! Smart guy, he’s done a lot of research and such into all kinds of stuff. Unfortunately a lot of it is just a pile of man’s philosphy garbage. But he’s got 3 kids he wants to have baptized and he’s not really sure how to go about that. So were gonna get back over there and teach him about it! Its gonna be sweet!

I don’t know if you can make perfect sense out of all that I just spilled out, but basically we were brought to a street, thought that nobody actually lived on it that we were looking for, and then the only house I knocked on had a SWEET potential investigator! What are the odds. I love it! We’ve had a few things happen like that this week. Its been great. I’m seeing what faith and prayer can really accomplish. I know there are people out here that the Lord has prepared, and apparently we’ve been doing something that’s maybe been keeping us from finding them. But I’m gonna keep shaping up and the Lord is going to continue to lead us to those who have been prepared to hear our message. YES!

Unfortunately I’ve also been sick this week. AGAIN! No bueno. And we’ve been walking around a TON. And its freezing cold outside. Seriously. I don’t think that helped me get better. But we’ve tried to be diligent and the Lord has blessed us.

Lately I’ve been noticing SO many blessing from heaven in my life. I’ve been reflecting on just the decision to come on a mission. That whole experience. That was a straight up gift. I did not ask for that. This is the best experience of my whole life. The best time of my life. The best thing for my life. And I didn’t even ask for it. The Lord just gave it to me. He sent someone to give me a nice little nudge. And somehow, I acted. I almost feel like I was rewarded with the best gift I could receive, for doing absolutely nothing. God is Good. Sometimes I just can’t believe it. How merciful the Lord is to His children. Really. Its incredible. I can look back over the past few years and remember times when I thought the same thing. The Lord is blessing me even when I don’t obey like I should. Like I know. So many blessings. Just so many!

I see some people out here, members, missionaries, and it intimidates me. Some people are just on top of things! I want to be like that, and I know I can be, I just have such a long way to go! To some people, I’m on top of things. But I could be doing so much better. I always feel like there’s this whole new level that I could rise up to. That all of us missionaries in our mission could and ought to rise up to. And in that sense, I don’t know if I’ll ever be satisfied. It’s the same thing with me and snowboarding. I spend all year filming this video part, collecting shots, trying to get all these tricks I want. I never get all the ones I want, but some years I do pretty good. But I’m never satisfied with it all. And part of it is that you progress as the year goes on. You learn new tricks and don’t’ end up having time or opportunity to shoot them. But there’s always something left on the table. Part of that is progression. If I’m satisfied with my video part, it means I’ve stopped progressing. So in that sense, its good to be unsatisfied. But I think it might be a little different with the gospel, and with missionary work. I don’t know though, this thought is just coming to me so I’ll have to think about it more.

All I meant to say is that there are some solid people in this world who really have the right idea and are way awesome and I want to be like them. But I got a long way to go! I’ve really started to see many of the blessings I missed out on by being a little more rebellious in my younger years. But my goodness, I am being seriously blessed by the Lord right now. I ought not to complain, but I want to be able to achieve some great things. I know that’s in my power, I just worry about myself, that I’ll be motivated enough to achieve my potential in life. I probably shouldn’t worry about his stuff right now! Ha.

I gotta send this before I get kicked off this computer! Love from the East!

David Elder