February 18, 2014

This week has been a good week! We are coming across some good potential for a really big week. We have kinda been going through a slump teaching wise the last two weeks Elder Collins was here with me. So we are working hard to get people to teach and we have a lot of potential and im super excited about what these next few months will bring. One of the ones im super excited to work with is Bruce. Bruce is staying with a member who takes care of older people or people who can't take care of themselves. Bruce is about 50ish and recently got into a very severe motorcycle crash and has been going through a lot of therapy. One of the biggest challenges he has had lately is mentally. He suffered some pretty severe head damage and is now trying to over come that. He is still not 100% there. His short term memory is a little hazy. Good news is if you missed anything he said while he was telling a story chances are you will get to hear it again in just a few minutes ha. But im excited he has tones of potential we just will have to take things slow. He shared this with us last time we visited with him. " im beginning to think that the reason I was saved in the crash was so that I could talk with you guys" let me tell you there are no other words that make a missionary more excited then those (other then maybe having been commissioned of jesus chirst...)

     We have also been meeting with a lady who has been talking with the missionaries for over 7 years and have been meeting with her for these past few months. This last lesson depending on how things go we were maybe going to have to drop here because she hasn't really been progressing. But we had an incredible lesson with her and im hoping and praying that she will receive an answer to her prayers.

    I have recently started to read the testament in my studies. I have been loving it so far. It has brought me so closer to Christ and there are soooooo many good lessons you can pull from the teachings of the savior. I am so excited to continue this read and hope that I can really get a lot out of it that will bless the lives of those that I am working with. 

   I also got an impression last week, and im not sure if I shared it already if I did im sorry, but I got the impression that I wont get my visa until I have read the book of Mormon in Portuguese. So I have been doing that a lot recently and im in 2 nephi already, my goal is to finish it before the end of this transfer but I don't know how realistic that is. But that is my goal none the less.

  Some fun stuff that has happened this week, I had to speak for 35 minutes in sacrament meeting when I only planned for 15 so that was an interesting experience. We have been doing a lot of walking to make sure we area good on miles and what not so that has been really fun. Everything has been really good and amazing as usual. Don't get me wrong there are some tough times but it always gets out weighted by the good so I aint worries bout nothing.

   Im so excited for my birthday! I can finally stop saying im 18!!! Its sucked with that so far! But im almost there!

   Hope all is going well back home and what not. Share the gospel with everyone you know and work with the missionaries!

                          Elder Davis 

February 10, 2014

  This week has been super awesome! I spent the first half of the week in a neighboring town called Jerome because my companion got his visa. So it was really cool I learned so much from the companion I was with (Elder Johnson) in just those few short days. I got a new companion Elder Pimentel who is from Hilmar, California. He has been out for 9 months and is a visa waiter as well. He is super cool and we are getting along very well. We have a lot of the same interests, which I could not say about my last companion, so that has been very awesome so far! I am super stoked to work with him and to stay in Hagerman. This week has been really fun and really spiritual as well. We have really made a big push on finding new people to work with and visiting all the members of our ward. there are about 520 names or families on the roster in a town of about 1200 in area of about 50 miles so there are a bunch of people around here that are Mormon so we really want to try and increase the amount of people attending church as well. I am so excited because we are actually working hard now! Elder Collins didn't have the best work ethic so that was probably the hardest thing for me. But we are working for sure now. We were here for only a half a week and we got 7 lessons. (which we normally would get about 5 so I am super excited about that. 

   

     We have been working with a lot of less-actives and part-member families and I have loved helping to strengthen them and their families. One family, the hulmes family, we have been working with a lot. The son (Austin) is the only active member of there family and although he is only 12 he walks to church every week by himself. It has been inspiring to watch and last week he was sitting all by himself and I told him to come sit by us and I think that rally helped him to let him know that although he is going alone he isn't alone. 

    This week I have been putting a lot of focus on charity and compassion in my personal studies and I am trying to apply it into my life so that I can more affectively help everyone. I have learned and grown soo much this past week and I really hope that I can make even more of an impact in peoples lives and try to bring them closer to Christ. I hope to make this a pattern for the rest of my life. I love this gospel and the opportunity I have to wake up every morning and have everything I do directed at serving the lord and trying my best to do what he would have me do. I have been learning so much about how to recognize the promptings of the spirit and trying to love as obediently as possible so I can be more receptive to it. I know that it is only through prayer and the promptings of the spirit I can know what the lord would have me do and the only way I can receive that is through faith, obedience and submissiveness.

     Last night we had dinner with a lady who takes care of people who can't live on there own due to disability. We had a neat lesson about heavenly father and jesus Christ in john 3:16 and one of them (bruce) who went to church earlier in the day expressed some cool thoughts and shared some stories and has shared his interest in maybe joining the church and taking lessons. I hope that we can help him come closer to chirst work with him towards baptism.

   This week has been super amazing and I cannot imagine being anywhere else, or doing anything else. I love this gospel, there is nothing more elegant, organized or true on this entire planet. I have come to a further knowledge of how much heavenly father loves all his children, and that he has a purpose and a plan for every one of us. I know that what I am doing is what the lord wants me to do and I know that as I diligently serve his family, he will in turn bless mine. I have found no greater happiness in my entire life then what I have experiencing on my mission. And I want to share that happiness that I feel and share it with everyone I meet.

  I love you all and am so thankful for all of your support and the things you have done for me in my life.

  * Also some fun things this week, It has been snowing "a lot" here lately which has been really fun. Saturday the Spanish elders from Wendell came down to help with a service project at Bro. woods house and we got side tracked and had a snowball fight which was really fun. It is really good to grow in unity with the other elders as well as take a quick break and immature again ha. I also cut my finger this week on accident which was fun ha. A mission is super spiritual and super fun! Best of both worlds!

                           Love,

Elder Davis