Monday, February 22, 2016

Tender Mercies can be fun too....

Area:  Kansas City, Missouri (Fleming Park Ward)    
Companion:  Elder Monroe

Well hello there!

This week has been an interesting one.  We have been very blessed with teaching opportunities and with being able to see progression happen with those in whom we are teaching as well.  We also have experienced the frustration with canceled appointments and investigators falling through, which always happens but in still never fun.

First of all, we had a big miracle happen on Sunday!  We have been working with a less active, part member family that has been recently returning to activity and we are also teaching their son.  Yesterday they came to church but they actually stayed the whole three hours!  I have not seen them actually stay the whole time because they feel like they don't know anyone who is in those third hour classes.  The comment that the guy we are working with said was just amazing as well.  The topic of the discussion was prayer and he talked about how prayer has helped him return to activity and has helped him decided to continue down the road he is on because it just feel right.  This guy has been less active since he was 18 and now he is 31, so that was just so great to hear come out of his mouth.

Angela's progression is also moving right along.  We invited a young couple in the ward to start fellow-shipping Angela and her husband and so they invited them over for dinner yesterday along with another young couple in the ward.  They were able to get some great fellowship and after they had dinner they asked us to come and share a message with them all.  We shared a message on the Book of Mormon and its divinity.  After the message we had most of them in tears, which was really good for Angela to see the sincerity that we all had for the Book of Mormon seeing that is where her struggle lies.

We were also able to have dinner with and active family in the ward who is a fellowship for another one of investigators and they were able to get that investigator to come over as well to dinner!  That is the best to see member of the ward inviting each other over for dinner.  There really isn't anything better than seeing members do missionary work and wanting to do it!  We were able to have a great lesson on the plan of salvation after dinner.

We went on a couple of exchanges this week with some missionaries in our zone.  This transfer our goal was to go on exchanges with every missionary in our zone so that we could build a relationship and get to know each one of them individually.  They have all been going really well!  Our perspectives have changed on who some of these missionaries are which is good and we were also able to see what we can do to help each one of them individually.

Oh!  We got news that Elder Stevenson will be coming March 12!

Last Saturday was a pretty rough day for us.  We had all our appointments fall through and nothing was working.  We were street contacting for about 4 hours and that wasn't working.  Then we had dinner with a member family.  Then our appointment fell through again and all the active member families were all at an elders quorum activity, so we could go and visit families...  We were kind of down on our luck so we just started to drive around and came across a lit basketball court at a park.  There were two guys playing basket ball, so we figured that we would go and play ball with them in hopes that they might listen to us or at least make some kind of impact.  We went down there and played them, showed them up and beat them pretty good, and then they left.  Elder Monroe is a pretty good basketball player as he played in high school.  Nothing really came of it, but who knows, maybe something will later on in their lives when they see two missionaries walking down the street.  At least we had a way to release our stress and frustration.  That was a tender mercy from the Lord.  :). (Tender mercies can be fun at the same time, right?)

As I was reading in the Book of Mormon this week, 2 Nephi 29 really stood out to me.  That chapter talks about how some people will say that we don't need anymore scripture and that the bible is enough. Yes, the bible is a fantastic book that has helped millions of people, but God loves all his children and so he blessed those in America with the same teachings, it was just in a way that they could understand! What a blessing it is to have the Book of Mormon in our lives today. The blessings that come from reading it, studying it, pondering on it, whatever it may be and endless!  Our Heavenly Father truly has blessed us with more of His truth that we can treasure up in our minds continually.

That is all I have for you this week!

Love you all!

Elder Shoemaker

I have the flag hanging over my desk, thanks Mom!






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