February 29, 2016
Hello my wonderful friends and family! What a wonderful life
we live! I have been marveled recently at all the amazing blessing, mostly
small, but some big, that the Lord bestows upon us each and every day. How
thankful I am for all that I have!
This past week was pretty busy for us. It seemed like we
didn't ever just have slow time. The highlight of the week was going to the
temple on Saturday! We arose dark and early
(4:20) so that we could be ready to get
picked up and drive to Lubbock in time for the 9:00
session. I just hate mornings so much. I know they say that you get used to
getting up at 6:30 on your mission, but I
have not found that to be true. I feel like it just gets more and more painful
staying diligent to that principle. But we're making it happen, somehow.
Anyway, the ride up to Lubbock was rather uncomfortable. We rode up with Bro
Lindsey (our sweet ward mission leader) in his Toyota 4Runner. Big and tall
Elder Cooper got the front seat and the rest of us crammed into the back seat.
And all being tired and basically passing out at points of the drive, we had
some interesting body positioning going on back there. Arms here, head there,
legs over yonder. Yeah, it was an experience.
The temple was full of
awesomeness! We went through the 9:00
session, and then after the session we went and helped with the youth baptisms
and I did confirmations! It was sweet though because both Sarah (the other
elders recent convert) and Mac both went for their first time! So it was an
exciting day for them! Well, Mac didn't seem to have too much emotion about it
all, but I know he had light boiling inside of him waiting to burst out! For
confirmations we did tons of Croatian names, so that was interesting. However,
I was rather impressed with how well I pronounced most of them without much
stumbling over them. I think I got that from Carl (dad). He seemed to do well
with pronunciations! But it was awesome to be able to help with so much work in
the temple. I seemed to have a little bit different mind-set this time, as I
was able to focus more on what we were doing for all of those many people. It
truly is an amazing work that the Lord has us do in the temple. His plan for
all of us is absolutely remarkable! Thank God for the Atonement and the
opportunity for ALL of us to be exalted!
We had a sweet storm last Monday night. We were outside our
apartment door watching the show when what seemed like three nuclear bombs were
dropped down the road! HOLY. COW. I basically stood still thinking the world
was coming to an end for a few seconds before I realized what had happened and
ran inside like a little girl! Hahaha! So freaky! But so legit! We got quite a
bit of rain from that storm (actually a LOT of rain) so San Angelo is in the
process of greening up real nicely right now! Things have been greening up for
the past few weeks but it took another step forward with all that rain!
We played some sweet dodgeball with the young men on Wednesday! We met a returning less-active at
the church at 7:00 and when we got out at
about 7:50 the young men had already begun
playing an interesting form of dodgeball, so we joined in! We joined half-way
through our first game so I had no chance of winning because I was trying to
figure out what the rules were for this game. We were playing in the chapel
overflow area so it was quite the crammed game of dodgeball. However, we moved
to play in one half of the gym after that first game, and I totally dominated!
Them young men had nothing on me! Haha jk! It was sweet though destroying those
young men with my shirt, tie, dress pants, and dress shoes. They didn't know
what hit 'em!
We keep having less-actives coming to church out of nowhere.
At church yesterday we had 3 there! It is always awesome to see people who have
fallen off a bit (or a lot) have a change in desires and thirst for the
blessings of the gospel again! It is interesting how everyone has a different
story as well! Nobody fell away for the same reason, and nobody had the
same events happen to drive them to come back! It is so interesting how each of
us live very different lives, and all need to learn different lessons here in
mortality, but all have the same eternal goal! It definitely gives me a great
appreciation for the life I live and a testimony builder that God is there
every step of the way because he knows what experiences I need and what lessons
I need to learn to prepare me for the eternities!
We had some good experiences with teaching/ministering
opportunities this week! We hadn't been able to meet with our good friend
Andrew in over a week leading up to Saturday
night. He was doing so good with praying and reading and making positive
changes in his life, and he was feeling the blessing so much! However in the
week or more that we weren't able to see him because of things coming up on his
side of things he hit a downward slippery slope! In fact, he said that he
almost called us and told us that he was done learning and didn't want us over
again. Luckily, he didn't. We showed up and we let him talk for a good while
and just get things off of his chest, and then we were able to discuss things
with him and that man was smiling and pumped by the time we left the door! It
is always so humbling to see what kind of an impact we can have on people who
are struggling. Those are the times that I am most thankful to be a missionary!
Same thing with our good friend Sam! Sam is the old man we had been teaching
and visiting. We decided that Sam is just not capable of being
"taught" because of where he is at, however we still get over there
to see him at least once a week if not more and discuss his life. Sam has been
trying to quit smoking and is making some killer progress! He told us that he
wished that we could just spend the greater part of the day with him because he
would probably be done smoking in no time! He always says that he almost called
us because we needed to get over there because he needed our presence. Another
example of an opportunity to minister to others that truly humbles me and makes
me thankful for the calling I have.
We had another opportunity to teach a
family of 3 on Friday! We had talked to the
husband/father of the Williams family out on his porch earlier in the week for
15 minutes or so and set up a time to come back on
Friday night. It definitely seemed like another, "If I'm here you
can talk to me" type of deals, which usually turn out to be nothing but a
punched appointment, but I felt pretty good about this one and had some good
faith going into it. Sure enough, they were waiting for us when we got there!
Apparently he had gone inside after talking to us and had a good lengthy
discussion with his wife about religion and the gospel which they hadn't
discussed in quite some time. They told us ALL about their conversations (it
took a while) and all of their concerns and questions about things were
answered perfectly by a wicked lesson on the Restoration! We walked out of
there two hours later leaving behind three
people who just had all their concerns and questions answered for the night and
three people super willing to learn more and find truth! It was sweet!
New
investigators don't come around these parts in plentiful numbers so it was
sweet to teach a family of three that was legit interested! We will be
returning to their home this evening for another lesson so it should be a good
time! Funny thing about that lesson the other night though..... I totally cried
a little bit. Ugh. I haven't shared the restoration in quite some time to real
people who are learning about it for the first time, so after I shared the
First Vision and took a nice long pause to let the spirit work, I began to
testify real strongly and it got me! I am becoming quite the spiritual softy. I
seem to get emotional over things these days. I was reading D&C 121 about
the rights of the priesthood trying to memorize it during studies, while on the
potty, and nearly started crying. I just can't seem to be man it up these days
when it comes to spiritual things. But hey, its pretty sweet when you are
testifying with tears. Real powerful stuff!
Anyway, somehow I made it through describing my softyness
without even getting a little teary, so I must be having a good day of
manliness.
Well I will leave you with that on this fine day! I love
y'all and hope that the good Lord blesses y'all as you go about being a light
to others!
God bless ya!
Elder Reed Ericson
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