We have to Keep The Faith in Missionary Work

Hey Mom!

This week was another great week. Things are just going great here in this area. This has honestly been one of my favorite areas to serve in! The ward is fantastic, and the people here just are super prepared and ready to receive the gospel! No one has come to church yet, besides the part-member family we are working with, but people are actually reading the Book of Mormon! And keeping return appointments! It's been super cool. I just love being here so much. Elder Gardner and I are doing great together as well. We're glad to be serving another transfer together. 

This week I've really been trying to put the faith back into missionary work. Sometimes after doing it for so long,it can become like a job! You pray so often that it may seem rote, you feel the Spirit prompt you to do different things, but you're so used to it that you just do it anyway, but one of my favorite leaders that I served around, Elder Richins, one time told me that "We need to keep the faith in missionary work." Or something to that effect. But really the underlying thing that makes the miracles happen in missionary work is Faith! Faith centered in Jesus Christ. Faith that we can work miracles if it is the Lord's will! And when you truly remember to have faith, you do see miracles. Gordon B. Hinckley said to Quentin L. Cook when helping create Preach My Gospel, "Tell the missionaries if they have more faith, they will have more success." Boy is that true! 

But we have been continuing to see miracles in our area this week. One day we decided to pray about where we needed to go next, and we thought of a certain neighborhood! But as we were going there, my GPS sent us a weird way and we got lost. We then felt prompted to knock on the door of a house that we saw off of the main road, so we parked in the driveway and walked up. We then talked to the man that lived there for about 15 minutes and he was sincerely interested in having us come back! It was super cool! We didn't meet his family, but he's got a wife, and 5 kids! It was sweet. Again, miracles  happen when you exercise faith. 

We had a few families invite us back earlier in the week! One invited us in and they were super nice! We had had contact with them for a while, and they had read the Restoration pamphlet, but they just weren't willing to pray about it and they said that they didn't believe it was true. But they were super nice. That's pretty common out here though. I just don't understand why someone wouldn't  just pray and ask God! There's like no way to lose, except your pride if you dont' want to be wrong... haha oh well! We're just trying to help them. The next family that invited us back was like the complete opposite! We met him on the street, and we got his phone number and had been in contact with him trying to set up a time to come by! And he was actually calling us back and everything to set up! We go into the lesson, we had prepared a nice lesson for them, they had like some soft christian music playing and had even baked cookies for us! Then we finally start with a prayer, and BOOM. Out comes the Anti-Mormon material that they had read. It was ridiculous! haha! They were so nice at the beginning! Talk about Wolves in Sheep's clothing right? Anyways, they brought up a ton of things that they didn't believe, but we just had to say that all we were doing was trying to help them receive blessing in their lives. It was tough, but we made it through! 

Things are just going great though! The ward is fantastic and they are really trying to help our investigators to come to church. It's so cool. It sounds like the youth conference went really well! And also, I can't believe that Austin is married... tell him I love him too! But I just think it's weird... haha! And please tell Grandma I love her too. 

My ponderizing scripture for this week is Mosiah 3:19 " For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father." Mosiah 3 is slowly becoming one of my favorite chapters in the Book of Mormon. But this verse really just kinda lays out how we can overcome our natural tendencies and become more like the Savior! If we can put our will in line with God's will, and follow His promptings to repent and become better, or to serve others and turn outward, that's how we can over come the natural man. I know that that will help us have a changed nature! 

Anyways, things are going great! I love you so much Mom. The gospel is true!! Everything. I love being here on my mission. I hope you have a fantastic week this week! I love you.

Love,

Elder Collier

PS I got a GIANT bike, and it's a hybrid road/mountain.  but I heard TREK bikes are pretty good. If he can, I'd recommend shocks in the front, because mine doesn't have any and going over bumps is kind of annoying. But that's just a preference! Anyways, I hope that helps! I love you!