Holland

Need I say more? The rest of my week would seem pretty insignificant if I even tried to overshadow Friday morning. We were so lucky last year to be able to recieve Elder Christofferson and Elder Holland coming to our mission was just a big big BIG plus. He was incredible, the man spent the first 10 minutes joking about how old he was, (and he does look old) but his voice and his spirit have not lagged a single bit. I´ve never heard anyone speak with more intensity in their voice, and more fire. Needless to say I have no doubt that I personally witnessed one of Christ´s special witnesses here on the earth today. I´m very grateful for that testimony and how it will be a bedrock for the rest of my life. Elder Holland´s message was about the Fall, we made a scoreboard for someone that understands gospel truths from the Book of Mormon, and someone who doesn´t. He explained how the knowledge we have of the Fall and the intercession of the Atonement makes us unique from the rest of the world. We are quite literally the only people on the face of this Earth that understand that doctrine. He made me laugh when he said sometimes he wishes he could just take Chapter 2 of Second Nephi and staple it into the Bible somewhere in the middle of Corinthians. I love Elder Holland, and now I have his voice recorded along with Elder Christofferson´s, and I´ll remember their words forever.

The rest of my week was involved in Transfers, and preparing for this Conference. Its been a lot of busy work here in the office but honestly that´s probably a good thing because my health has not been soo good. I´ve been struggling to get back to full strength, but I know that´s no reason to slow down and that I just need to keep my head down and stay focused. We have kind of hit a rut here in our area, we have quite literally either baptized or cut all of our investigators. Now the trick is finding them with the limited time and resources that we have. That is going to involve visiting a lot of members, its been far more effective. I like to think of it as a type of fundraising the surely Grandpa Rex used to do for BYU. It´s going to be far more efficient sitting down with someone and being like "look, I don´t really want to be here. I don´t want to have to suck you dry or ask you for help you´re not dying to give, but i don´t have another choice, so... Hand it over." Rather than running into the street and stopping pedestrians one by one asking them for 5 bucks.

I´ve lost all patience to teach normal imperfect people that don´t want responsibility. I either want to teach elects or I don´t want to teach at all.

I honestly love missionary work. I´ve come to learn it´s eternal importance in the scheme of everlasting exaltation. I know it needs to be done, and I know it needs to be done the way the Lord asked it to be done. Elder Holland told us he knows he asks more of us than is fair, but he would never ask for apologies. I took that as meaning that we need to realize; I know that more than what is fair is being asked of me, but I´m not going to complain. Complaining never solves anything and quite ironically only makes a bad situation worse. The Gospel is the answer to all of life´s question´s and anybody that has real faith will live it, and find the blessings of doing so. Pray for my well being and the well being of those I teach.

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That I forgot to tell: I call it "What is the worth of a Taxi?"

On Thursday we spent most of the day helping the secrataries get all of the materials ready for the Holland conference. We had already skipped one of our appointments that we had to help and we had one more coming up at 8 that i really didnt want to cancel but we had to help them finish up so we did. It turned out that there were way more matierals than we thought there was going to be so we decided to grab a taxi and take them down the to south mission so we wouldn´t have to take them in the morning. The only problem was that is was raining super intensely which was backing up all the taxis, every one we called said they couldnt attend us. So sitting there not sure what to do we see a Taxi drive up and drop a guy off in front of the office. We run out there frantically to try and grab her and she luckily didnt have another route and agreed to take us. 

Long story short after a few basic questions me and Elder Baker dived in to teaching the first lesson. She became instantly intrigued with the idea of the Book of Mormon and was really excited about coming to our English Clases. Unfortunately this Taxi Driver was a woman (no pun intended) and doesnt have the directional skills of a man, and we got very very lost, giving us tons of time to teach and field questions, but racking up our Taxi bill. But we finally got there.  We ended up asking her to wait while we unloaded the boxes at the south mission to take us bafck so we could talk to her more, and we started talking about the Temple. It just so happened that we were super close, so we told her to drive by to see it and we would pay the difference, again, upping this already expensive Taxi Bill.

 it was a fantastic experience of someone that the Lord may or may not have thrown in our path. Honestly I´m not sure if he did or not but I know we took advantage of it and taught her, gave her a book of mormon, and picked up her address for the misisonaries to go there. She promised to come to English class this next Friday, and that she would read the introduction of the Book of Mormon. The bill for that Taxi was about 3 times what we would have paid if we would have picked up our typical gruff "go screw yourself, I hate my job" Taxi driver. But that money and the appointment I canceled would be all worth it if she so much as stepped foot inside an LDS building and felt the spirit. It gives you an idea of how much one soul is worth to God. Does anyone know the value? Mathew did, and he described it in his Gospel, but basically, it´s a lot.