Duty to God

Hey y'all,  I really don't have a lot to say about this week... We had two exchanges, and a bunch of service, so at the end of the week, we'd hardly done any missionary work in our area. Which was frustrating, but we also had a blast, so it was alright.  The general theme of this week has been improving. Elder McCain and I have been setting goals with consequences all week. For example, if he doesn't exercise this week, he has to eat a cricket. If I drink caffeine this week, I have to drink a can of this nasty, unsweetened grapefruit juice. It's been good.  My Sabbath-day poem was kind of along those same lines, and how our trying to be like Jesus is how we ought to progress. Here ya go,  Try to see what Jesus sees,  When walking through this life.  Every person is a soul,  Each filled with joy and strife.  Try to know what Jesus knew,  And learn what we should do.  Knowledge from faith will grow,  A...

Hello Friends,  This week has been pretty cool, but it's also lasted for a long time!  ​I guess to preface the whole thing, the people in Qu​incy are so amazing! They just start conversations with us, and are super accepting of our message. When we got here we had no investigators, and so far we've found 28 new investigators. But this week all but 13 of them dropped us. It's been hard to come to terms with that, but the key is to focus on the progress we are making with a few of those 13. It's been long, kinda hard, but definitely worth it.  On another note, I've come to realize a mindset that is really frustrating. That's the, "at least I planted a seed" mindset. So often this ward, the missionaries, and everyone really, get caught in this trap where we justify ourselves by saying that we've done our part by planting a seed. It's super important to plant seeds of faith, but our job is to nurture those seeds and help them grow. Don...

Hello all!  ​ ​This week has been incredible! So much too say, no words to properly say it with, so I'll try my best.  Elder McCain and I have honestly never felt so guided in our lives. We feel like the whole situation here is spring-loaded and ready to go, but we have to figure out what we need to do to trigger the work here.  This Wednesday  we were trying to figure out what we were supposed to do, and we both felt like we needed to go back to the apartment and study  member work in Preach my Gospel. So we did that.  ​And oh how amazing the next few hours were. I've experienced revelation in some small ways before, but this was huge!  Two hours later , we had this beautiful plan to implement to bolster the ward missionary work. Through that experience we were able to see what God's vision for member missionary work is for this ward, and it's incredible. I've never been so excited about a church thing!  The next couple days wer...

I'm actually way closer to Kansas than I used to be, but that statement has never felt more true.  I'm getting ahead of myself. It's hard to believe that I was actually in the MTC this week. It feels like an eternity ago. But those last few days in the MTC were some of the most special I've ever had. I miss everyone from my district sooo much! We were able to have a testimony meeting as a district  on Tuesday  night, and it was so powerful. The spirit was there in a way it hadn't been since the day I arrived, and in retrospect, was definitely something I needed to help get me through this week.  Anyway, at  2:30  in the morning  on Wednesday  we headed to the travel office and were on our way. There were 27 of us going to Iowa, so we didn't have the chance to talk to non-members on the plane, cause there were so many missionaries we were sitting with. But during our layover in Denver I was able to discuss the Book of Mormon with a non-mem...