Being Tested

Well this week has been a turning point in my mission. I have learned a lot from myself to be honest because I was given the opportunity to teach a zone training and I learned a lot from the spirit as the words came out of my own mouth. 

Before I get into that last week on P-day we went tracting and this guy came out and was not happy we were there told us to leave blah blah blah the normal stuff... anyways.. The last thing he told me was that God had never done anything for him or helped him.... So he went inside and I felt like I needed to talk to him again but I knew he was not happy and even once was probably not a good idea to ring his bell.... but we said a prayer and I still felt like I needed to go back so we did. I went back and rang the bell and he came out and I pretty much told him to not get mad and that God had reached his hand out to him and that we were called by God to talk to him... His face changed and he didn’t get mad but he just said okay boys but I don’t want to listen, and as he walked away I asked if we could at least help him with something and he told us it would have been better if we just had not rung the bell.... well after that I thought about it a lot and tried to figure out why I felt like I needed to go back and talk to him and why I was supposed to tell him that and I still can’t figure it out but I knew that’s what God wanted me to do and I did what I was told and I felt good about it. I learned a lot from that... sometimes we don’t know why we do this and we second guess if it is from the spirit, but if it is a good thought it is always from the spirit and it doesn’t matter the outcome... what matters is what God wanted us to do and if we did it. So I got tested by God this week and I feel like I passed. 

Also this week we met with one of our investigators and it was really nice out so he didn’t want to meet inside.... So we went outside and met in front of a huge massive super pretty Catholic Church... I don’t know how smart that was but we did it and it went well. We had a good talk and I just thought it was funny that we were preaching even in front of the Catholic Church.

Well it gets even crazier... this week on splits with Elder Fitzgerald, who is a homie, I love him, we started talking to these two youngish people on the street and we didn’t realize but right behind us was a huge reformists church and these were the two pastors for this church. So we got a really good conversation going and it was super cool. We ended up getting invited into this church to get a private tour and to see the inside. So we went in and got to look around and Elder Fitzgerald started to talk to them about Joseph Smith and then I committed them to meet with us sometime and talk about his story... So we fulfilled the scripture of “going to their synagogues and preaching to them in them”. It was pretty intense I was pumped ha-ha. 

Also we had a straight up miracle happen this week. We talked to our new investigator Dora and she told us that by Tuesday... two days after getting the Book of Mormon she had already read to 2 Nephi.... I was flipping out. I have never had something like that happen on my mission and then they came to church on Sunday so we are super pumped for them and we are really excited to teach them more. 

Our other investigators are progressing well but one of them really thinks that his baptism is correct in the Catholic Church but he knows that the Book of Mormon is true so we are working with him to understand the restoration and to help him realize that he needs to be baptized again.

We met with Ildikó and tivadar and they are doing really great and we also had a miracle with them. Ildiko told us that she knows the Book of Mormon is true from fasting because she got an answer as she read. We were really excited and we asked her if she would be baptized and she told us that she wasn’t sure about it but wants to pray about it and see a baptism and then she will decided. So I have the faith that she will be baptized one day and we are going to try and help her be ready for that!! 

I would like to finish with something that I taught in zone training. I used one of the pump up speeches that I listened to before every football game. It is the speech by Erik Thomas about how you need to want to be successful as bad as you want to breath. I told the missionaries that if we do not have the desire to be successful then we never will be. We have to put the thing that we want most in the world right in front of us like we are trying to get a fresh breath of air and then work for it as hard as we would if we couldn’t breath. I have hit the turning point in my mission that once again I am putting God first. He has done so much for me and I owe it to him to save his children and preach the gospel. It’s the most important thing to me and that’s why I am here. I love you all so much I hope you have a great week!!

Elder Ure