We've been grinding super hard here in Lake Charles! We put Nain on date for April 17th which is super sweet! AND we got 2 new people this past week. 1 was a person I came into contact with through facebook, and the other was a cool story. Were not allowed to street contact or proselyte, but we can knock on grey dots doors(area book equivalent to a not interested or too busy person). So we went to go have a lesson with one of our investigators, but the lesson fell through, and we had a lesson with another investigator like 50 minutes after. So we couldn't go home, but we didn't know what to do with the time, so I looked up the nearest grey dots and said we'd go there. The grey dot was a person named Maria who requested a Book of Mormon drop off, but after that she would just hang the phone up on us when we tried to ask if she got it or read it or anything. Anyways, we go knock on this person's door, and someone named Juan Carlo answers and says he's never heard of Maria hahaha. Anyways we just used it as an opportunity to contact him, and we were able to share a scripture and set up a time to come back and teach again. We were also able to leave with a prayer. That was dope because it took up the perfect amount of time so we could drive to our next appointment. We got there just to find out that he was at work in Baton Rouge (he's a roofero) and that we wouldn't be able to meet with him then. I just thought it was cool tho, because we were both kinda butthurt that 2 people had cancelled on us, but we were given the opportunity to focus on the 1 good as opposed to the majority. So that and putting Naín on date were probably the highlights. Also the person I contacted from facebook I did a call all by myself. It was only around 10 minutes but I was way impressed because phone calls are where I struggle a lot with Spanish. It's kinda hard to understand, and it's hard to make conversation, but I think it went pretty decently which was pretty cool!
One cool thing I focused a lot on in my studies was how hard things bring the opportunity for growth. The definition of a trial in my own words would have to be "seeing who you are now(point A), and who you want to become(point B), and starting the route from point A to B". I read a talk which was really cool, it talked a little bit about tithing which helped a lot with my attitude towards it. I feel like telling people about tithing is going to be the hardest thing for me. Asking for tithing from someone barely scraping by seems so hard, but this talk called like "trust in the Lord" helped a lot. It mentioned a part where this dude works for millionaires and they all built their fortune from nothing through working hard. However, they said they wanted to help their kids out so that they could have an easier life. He said this was the exact opposite of what a perfect parent would want for their kids, for to deprive them of working hard for what they have would be the biggest tragedy to their growth and development. Similarly, tithing takes faith that our 90% plus the Lords help will be better that the 100%. To ask the poor to not pay tithing would, in a sense, be stunting their growth physically and spiritually. The same applies with us with each of our own struggles. I'm not going to lie... I think waking up at 6:30 has got to be my refiners fire Hahaha. Anyways, just some food for thought.
My comp is awesome, but Elder Ludtke comp kinda sucks ahahah. He is always on Facebook, he hasn't done personal study the whole time he's been here, he is always sleeping and has no motivation to do things, he stays on his phone till like 1 in the morning, he always takes his phone in the bathroom, and he stays in the bathroom for hours at a time. It's super not good, but he acts like he's the best missionary in the world in front of other people... last night, he had an electric razor, and he was shaving for like an hour... at 2:30 in the morning. It woke everyone up. Also he's shaved probably 5 times this week for an hour at least, and he can't grow facial hair so I think he's capping about the razor. I don't know what to do, but he kinda pisses me off sometimes. Like how could someone throw away 2 years of their life? How could someone waste such precious time, you either choose to serve him, or you go home. I don't understand how anyone could be so comfortable with wasting time that should be given to the Lord. It is frankly very tough to have love for him, and I'm not sure how I should do it, I've worked hard the past 3 transfers to find success in this area, all 6 of the other missionaries that have been in this area have too. I don't want him and his slothfulness to hurt the progress of such a fragile area. Feel free to give me any suggestions, its probably not encouraged to rant about another missionary. Even if he's not your comp. Oh well hahahaha
Peace
Elder Jones
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