Soooo tired, but we keeeep going!

Well it is the end of October and last week still felt like August! C'mon Florida! But the mornings and nights are really nice.

So this week I had a pretty great experience. We have been blessed so much recently. We have been finding and teaching sooooo many people, seeing a lot of miracles in that aspect of our work. And we had some high hopes for a family (Yessika, Clara, Brittany, and Juan) then a family of 6 named the Carmona family and then Elias who all looked like they would get baptized soon. Yessika was so golden, her and Clara went to church and liked it a lot, and they had a date for the 4th of Nov, but then on Saturday, Yessika and Clara told us they would be working on Sunday, and they have to take their car, so the rest of their family can't go to church. Broke my heart. I wanted to cry. Then that same day, we were going to go on a temple tour with the Carmona family and they were going to LOVE it, but they couldn't because of work. And it just felt like they were dropping off the radar because the parents worked so much this week and that just kind of drained my attitude too. So after all of that I was riding on my bike, super down and bummin' because it felt like we had so much "baptismal success" in the next month and it was trying to slip through our fingers. And that has happened sooo many times on my mission, where we are so close to baptisms and they just all fell at once. So as I am pitying to myself on my bike, I remember a conversation we had with some members a couple days before. We talked about Jonah and how he was hot on the mountain and so the Lord caused for a goard (plant) to grow to give him shade for a day. Then the next day the Lord sent a worm to eat the plant and Jonah got really mad and upset. But then the Lord tells him something like, "Why are you mad? I caused the plant to grow in the first place?" I was called to repentance by the Spirit there on my bike. All of the blessings and the progress of our investigators was because of what he had done for us. He helped them progress, he prepared him, and then when they started to fall back a little bit, I started to ask "Why?" But I realized that I had been blessed more than I could ask for. So I soon got over my little sadness haha. And realized that God has given me all of the success that I have had and all the blessings that I have had. But that has really got me thinking about life. All the time we ask, "Why? Why me? Why this?" But everything we have is from God and was given to us. It was a great lesson to be learned. And then I read Elder Stockard's letter home that Papa Tom sent me. He has some incredible faith and was an example to me. I could feel the spirit of his letter and I realized that all will be well, these families will progress, Yessika will have Sunday's off and the Carmona family will be just fine, and allllll is well. Even though we had a frustrating 2 hours, this week was AMAZING! So many miracles, we found about 30 new potentials this week and got 6 new investigators and taught a lot of lessons. Why do I droop in the sad moments? haha. This life is amazing!

We have a member in our ward named Dennis Cabrera. She has been a member for about 1 year and 3 months. She is so amazing though. I don't think she ever stops smiling. She doesn't have a car, but will pay people to take her to church, find a member, or even invite a friend with a car to church. She is magic haha. She knows the blessings of the Gospel in her life. She is the definition of a member missionary. She has probably brought 10 different people to church, invited 200 to church and activities, and given out 20 BofM's in her 1 in the church... I just felt like talking about her because yesterday she did her magic (which is just inviting with a smile that says "this gospel makes me happy") and invited her friend Maria to church. Maria loved it! And her 4 yr old son Angel. Maria wants to bring her husband next week and tonight we have an FHE, (hosted by Dennis Cabrera) with Maria+ family, other ward members, our investigator Elias, Yessika and family, and hopefully the Carmona family. It is going to be awesome! Missionary work is the greatest blessing!

love you all!

Elder Christiansen'143