The Ups and Downs of a Mission

Hola mi familia y mis amigos

 

So first off, I have to mention that my older brother just helped me out a bunch.  For the last year or so, our church has been producing videos of the bible accounts of the life of Christ.  All of the videos are accesible from the internet.  But our problem arised from there: none of the people we teach have access to internet in their homes.  So, I asked Jared to put all the videos on a dvd.  This past week he sent all of the videos on a dvd for us to use and it's worked great.  Especially two of the videos: Christ's baptism and Mary, the Mother of Christ.  So, thanks Jared.

 

As of yesterday, our mission officially split into two halves.  I'll be staying in the Utah Salt Lake City Mission.  On the Fourth of July we're having a mission wide celebration where we'll be able to see all of the people staying in our mission.

 

These past two weeks have been some of the hardest of my entire life.  We've struggled finding people to teach.  We've gone through six bikes in three weeks.  We've had knee problems.  We've had back problems.  Everyone who we're teaching ends up having something crazy that holds them back from baptism (tuberculosis, divorces, crazy relatives, babies being born).  Nothing at all seemed to go right.  But, we had one bright spot this past week.

 

About two months ago, Elder Moczygemba and I met a single mother who has five kids (ages 2-17).  She's struggled with money problems and trying to raise her kids.  We met with her a few times but all of the appointments started falling through with her and we stopped going by.  On Saturday morning, the Holy Ghost told us that we should go by her house again that afternoon.  So we did.  And she warmly received us and said she wanted to go to church the next day with us.  So she and her five kids all came to church with us the next day.  The mom found many new friends who are all eager to support her and she smiled and relaxed for the first time in months.  The kids all knew people from school already so they loved it as well.  Tonight, we're holding a family home evening (a weekly activity as a family that we do in the Church) with them.  They still have a lot of money problems and may be forced to move out soon.  Please include in your prayers Lilia and her family so that they can find help financially but more importantly that they can feel peace and comfort in their lives.

 

-Elder Colton