September 9, 2013

Hello Everyone,

This week was pretty uneventful but I did learn a bunch about the power of prayer. I figured I would start there, this may be a little bit of a silly story but here goes. A few weeks back I was to receive a package that was a package of a bit of sacrifice and I wanted very badly to receive it. Well time went by and by and it never came and as you may imagine I was a bit worried but I prayed and prayed and asked God to not let the sacrifice go to waste and I prayed and prayed and I officially gave up worrying about it when I found out it had been marked delivered and felt that worrying was a waste of my time and energy. One night, my Zone Leaders just came up to me and said, "Hey we have a package for you, someone loves you a lot." I realized in that moment that someone really does love me lots. God had heard me and though it seems trivial and silly to worry so much or look so much into the receiving of a package, having received it made me realize that I hadn't just received some snacks and shirts and whatnot but that I had received an answer to my prayers. I feel like God takes times like this to teach me just plain and simply because that is how I learn best. It just made me feel great to know he cares even about the little things in our lives even silly packages.

Other than that we had a pretty standard week, we had tons of rain and that meant mud and that meant no one outside which makes meeting people interesting. Rain here just sucks the life out of the world it seems, people don't like it because it makes it humid as sin and that just makes it like a rainy sauna. Like a shower kind of and that isn't fun. However Elder Lloyd and I worked pretty hard to make things happen and we saw some miracles even among a lot of trials.

George didn't come to church and I feel as though we are going to have to let George know we won't be going by anymore, that until he is ready to act we really can't help him. That is a hard part of missionary work but it is a huge part of it is knowing when you can do no more and I think unfortunately we have reached that point with George. He is a good man and I am confident one day he will accept the Gospel in it's fulness but not right now.

Joe Angel needs grandmas permission and she isn't giving it yet, I need all the faith for that miracle I can get so feel free to add your prayers to mine that Joe Angel can and will be baptized this week.

Vanessa seems to be distancing herself from us which is hard because she was doing so well. We aren't too sure what is happening but we are going to work our hearts out to get her back. She has had a few questions about the living prophets and that plus all the anti seems to have turned her off a bit to the church but we know that the Lord can help and that he will if this is her time. More on that as we can.

This week amidst all the trial we found a light, there is a less active 16 year old named Alma, and her and her friends were doing some not so good stuff and she wanted to change. So she and her friend Tiffany decided that they were going to start going to church and start being better and she told us all about her plans. Then they never went through, this was all about a month ago. So after trying and trying to meet tiffany we just kind of gave up, Alma wasn't helping things were looking bad. Then all of a sudden yesterday they showed up at church and now we have a lesson with Tiffany on Tuesday. She seems like a good girl that has a lot of potential and that makes us happy. Kind of like a light in a dark room that we were in. We hope she will progress and that she will be baptized.

We spoke with the Stake president and have officially set some things up to get work going to open this branch back up. Elder Lloyd and I have been working hard to make specific plans and we feel that it will be open very soon. We are hoping 6 months, neither of us will really be here to see it but we want to make sure it is at least happening. We just need to meet with all the bishops that would be involved and get the members doing their part. If they do that and we do ours we know the Lord will bless them.

Other than that there has not been a ton. Sorry it is short and seems rushed, I had some emails that needed sending. I hope you all know that I love you and want to leave you a challenge this week. Pick someone you know, someone you love and make a list of their strengths, like 3 or 4 will be plenty and sneak that list into a place where they will find it. Make that list from your heart, make it anonymous. The reason being is that I realized this week the importance of focusing on finding the good in others as well as ourselves and sometimes it takes an outside source to help us find a strength we didn't know we had. If you really want, make several lists and be sure to extend the committment to all those you make the lists for in writing. I hope that makes sense.

 

Dale!

 

Elder Bassett