This week was good. We found 2 people who seemed really ready to be taught. One was the easiest tracting experience ever. She knew an old guy once who was a member and he use to bring her “stuff to read” like the Ensign. When we asked if it would be okay if we came back and talk to her about the restoration and the hope the gospel brings us she was like “yeah that’d be so great!” With the response we usually get in Liberty Lake at a door step we were almost taken a back. It took a couple seconds to gather our thoughts and set up an appointment. The other contact loves baseball. We met him on one of the most fantastic days Liberty Lake has ever seen! The sun was shining and we had left our coats in the car because it had gotten so warm. He’s going out of town, but we’re excited to teach him when he gets back. He’s getting back around the first week of March and has a Book of Mormon that should keep him busy until then. We’re also hoping to see one of the families we’ve been teaching again. They’re back from Seattle.
We just heard from one of a our members that one of our investigators who refuses to be baptized “yet” is also refusing to read and pray because she already knows it’s true. That was frustrating.
We fasted this past Sunday with a family we’ve been helping become active in the church again. They fasted in order to “know where they need to be”. I know that if they were truly fasting for the right reasons that they will receive an answer. They just need to be willing to act on whatever answer they receive. And be ready to face the challenges to follow. It wont be easy, but it will be worth it. Eternity is hard. It’s AFTER the hardness that we see results. It’s just like anything else in life. Running is hard when you first start, but it’s not until you get past all the hardness that you get to see all the positives that come from it. We’re all holding our breath. Mostly we’re praying.
Sister Salisbury is still great.
Eric Sande is still the best. I love Sundays because no matter how the week goes, on Sunday I get to take the sacrament and I get to see Eric and be reminded of the good this gospel brings me and all those who have the courage and strength to stand against the Hell fire that tries to keep us from it. I have been thinking a lot about that lately. Those who have courage and those who don’t. It’s our own stubbornness or fear that damns us really. It’s made me think about the spirit world a lot. Death doesn’t change who we are and I don’t think the resurrection does either. I think people will continue to think that their way was and is the right way forever. Those who feel sorry for the latter day saints here will feel sorry for the latter days saints in the world to come. They will still feel like we re foolish and still have a very small understanding of eternal things because that is what they are comfortable with. During the apostasy it seems like Satan had people re-write the “rules” for God. Man started to re-write how things work and expect[ed] God (and everyone else for that matter) to follow those “rules” that they had laid out. There really is One God, One Faith, and One baptism. There is God’s way and all other ways. If you choose another way than you choose another way but that doesn’t make it God’s way. He will let you do it. He will love you anyway. But it is not His way.
Something that President Baker said to us at a zone conference was “We don’t get what we deserve, we get what we ask for”
I have changed it this week to “We don’t get what we deserve, we get what we want” If you want to try eternity another way, that you will, if you want eternity God’s way than that is the way you will take. How does one differentiate between God’s way, man's way and their own way? Prayer. If you want to know what God want’s you to do, then ask Him! Don’t try to figure it out on your own or by the word of man.
The Gospel is such a simple thing. I don’t know why people try to make it so abstract.
This Sunday was really hard for me. I hit a brick wall. In one of our wards our gospel principles teacher is absolutely crazy. I don’t feel comfortable bringing investigators to his class. He teaches false doctrine, he tries to complicate everything, he’s offensive, and he’s sarcastic to the point that it drives the spirit away. He talks fairly openly about experiences in the temple and sometimes quotes things said in the temple. I felt sick to my stomach after this past class. I really felt like I was going to puke. I left and went into the bathroom and cried. I prayed. I prayed so hard. I needed to know that He was in charge of all of this, I needed hope and support. I needed joy, not peace, not comfort, I needed joy right in the midst of confusion and loneliness. It was raining. As we set out to tract I was still shaking off the feeling of lividity (I just made up that word I think) from the gospel principles teacher. I mulled things over. I began to see my choice. I was in the position I was in. I could chose to be happy or I could choose to stay where I was. Either way I was tracting for the next two hours in the rain. So the question was, happily or miserly? Happily. It was hard but the Lord blessed me with a song to hum, “There is sunshine in my soul”. With every note I hummed my mood lightened and my smile widened. And I know it was a blessing from the Lord because I haven’t heard or thought of that song in ages. It reminded me of the choices before me. It reminded me of why I am a missionary. It reminded me that no matter what had happened in my day, good or bad, the people, the children of God that I was going to testify to in the next two hours deserved so much more than a miser on their doorstep. Whether they liked it or not a representative of Jesus Christ was going to knock on their door. And unbeknownst to them it would be way better than the alternative --- A hungry, cold and wet 22 year old miser.
I know this gospel is true and I know the Lord Loves his children.
Sister Bailey.
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