I’m trying
to think of a creative way to start this letter in honor of my
brand-spankin-new mission president, who has a degree in English…, I’m comin’
up blank though. I apologize.
Whelp, this
week was excellent. We had this weird
break in the weather where it was like 80 and hardly any humidity…it was phenomenal! We biked all over creation, talked to tons of
people, and had a great time!
So, update on
Shardin. He was not baptized. We ended up pushing the date because he had decided
to go on a campout whit the young men which went over Saturday and Sunday. A little mixed up on the priority scale, but
all-in-all not a bad thing. So he’ll be
baptized on the 12th (which he was).
He passed his baptismal interview on Saturday morning, and he’s way
excited!
Cool
miracle: On Sunday, the sisters that we
live with got a confusing phone call from a man named Lorrin, who is from
Pohnpei. So they hand over the phone,
because I’ve gotten really good at interpreting the accent. We called him back and he just kept saying
over and over and over again “I rean pwuken mormon, and I see misineri on bike,
and I cry tears of you! I need
baptized! Can you help me!? His English was very broken, and he couldn’t
remember his address. He had found the
phone number somewhere and was so happy you could hear him crying on the other
end. It was so special. We were able to ask Sel, one of our Pohnpeian
Rc’s…and she knew who he was! So the
missionaries in Lexington (turns out that’s where he lives) are seeing him this
week. It was so cool to see the operations
of the Lord in the life of this single man.
We are never, ever forgotten!
Something
cool from the scriptures: This morning
as I was studying about the liahona and how it worked…in Alma 37:41 Alma is
talking about the family of Lehi, and what happens when they tried to use
it. “They were slothful and forgot to
exercise their faith and diligence, and then those marvelous works ceased, and
they did not travel a direct course and were afflicted with hunger and thirst,
because of their transgressions.” It seems
slothfulness = cessation of miracles in this story and every other I’ve been
able to find. There are no shortcuts…to
making money, to losing weight, to learning a skill, to gaining a
testimony. It seems that we, as a
general people, are always looking for that quick fix, but…we’re taught here
that hard work will bring amazing things.
This is why the book of Mormon is so difficult to get through. It’s why commandments appear so difficult to
live. The hard things torn out to be the
world’s best. That’s why our mission say’s
every morning, “I LOVE TOUGH THINGS!” ‘Cause we do!
This week, I
invite y’all to embrace tough things…to do something difficult this week. I promise that you’ll see progression in your
individual journey & you’ll be an example to those around you.
Love y’all
Have a
blessed week!
Love,
Sister
Derrick
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