Week 12

This week has been full of its own challenges but they were over come through thoughtful meaningful prayer, the companionship and guidance of the Spirit, and by the brother love of my companionship Elder O'Hare. We started off this past week with a ward Halloween party which I did dress up for in the most missionary appropriate way possible. I will say the brits need to learn how to party like the eastridge 8th ward party. I got the privilege to meet a lot of less actives and got a few dinner appointments from them and a thanksgiving dinner appointment from a less active missionary who loves Americans and just American culture. we played American football with him most of the night. Tuesday we had to cancel all of our plans which were solid potential investigators to go on splits with our Zone leaders Elder Heilesto and Skinner. Which was uneventful but got the opportunity to meet their bishop who later called my mom which was a blessing. We did evaluations were I asked openly and honestly what I could improve on, and they knowing my real intent behind it showed me the numbers they want me to hit and gave me constructive criticism over it. Which honestly overwhelmed me, they expected so much because I was trained by an AP and I know how to do all they asked, but it put a lot of responsibility and trust on my plate that I didn't know how to deal with. On top of that our golden investigators Bridget and shaw called us and told us they needed some time to prepare for a unforeseen court battle over Bridget's children with her ex husband. The adversary hits us hardest when we are on the cusp of entering the narrow gates that lead to salvation. We have not seen or heard from her since, it frustrated me so much how the adversary worked and I was frustrated that we lost 2 souls. I also felt partially responsible as if their blood was on my hands. with this all on my mind i went on another exchange the next day with our district leader after our district meeting in which i gave a training. i had my nice little training all planned out but literally hours before my training the district leader asked me to change my training, and it ruined my plans and ruined my training. i was so embarrassed and frustrated that nothing was going right despite me trying my hardest and literally putting in my best effort (i put 2 hours of effort to make my 20 minute training). Then one of the older missionaries who i could only describe as the disobedient missionary from the best two years pulled me aside and gave me a pep talk on trainings and what it meant to be a missionary. it motivated me and comforted me in a very over whelming time (his name is elder bender by the way). i went on exchanges with an mtc friend from my district and we killed it and got 2 new investigators and taught a fantastic lesson to a recent convert. Thursday I'm back in my area seemingly picking up the broken fragments of the goals and plans i had set for the area and starting from square one, in that day we worked so very hard to get new investigators and potentials to meet with again (its getting cold and we don't want to freeze tracking at night). we put a older gentleman Paul on date for baptism and he is pursing faithfully the gospel. Friday we grinded hard on getting new people in our teaching pool, we taught someone over Facebook and we were doing so well with her. We then felt prompted to invite her to be baptized over messenger( advice don't ever do that ever) which she didn't accept but only because she is so busy we were only able to schedule a 10 minute appointment on Saturday. We were able to meet her the next day and she is a lovely 18 year old girl who would benefit from the gospel. that day we got dragged into (the sisters and ourselves) being waiters of a sisters birthday party (which is not our purpose). We did it because they always gave us referrals and we got an investigator from them. But it did take about 4 hours of the Lords time away. we mingled with non members and less actives along with bishops and stake counselors , it was a lot of fun. this Sunday we froze ourselves to death knocking formers, less actives, and referrals doors. A lot was over come this week and a lot to sacred to send through email, i love you all and pray for you every day

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Benji J. Massey