We Walked All the Way Till There Wasn't Any More Road

01/13/2014

This week was pretty good. I have a really massive ingrown toenail that exploded this morning, leaking a whole lot of fluids and I’m going to get the nail removed tomorrow. But hey that’s just life I guess.   I’m still learning patience and humility, and things are getting better. My companion and I have been looking for new investigators lately because we’ve had to drop some people [off our teaching pool] and we’ve baptized some of our investigators. It’s never really very effective to go door-to-door contacting, or just to pick a random house.  But we did have a really cool experience that I will share.  

My previous companion never really showed me all of our area because it’s huge.  But my companion and I have really tried to figure out our area.  The other day we had a lot of our lessons fall through, so we just kept walking in one direction.  I felt kinda bad and I felt like we should go find someone to teach and that we were wasting time.  But I just let it go and didn’t say anything to my companion. I just thought, “yeah it’s fine, we are learning our area.”  We kept walking and found ourselves on a road that just kept going farther and farther. It was the farthest reaching road in that area.  We walked all the way till there wasn’t any more road, and my companion just decided to contact this house.

We started to talk to this lady and she told us how she had talked to missionaries before, but she hadn’t seen missionaries in five years.  We also found out that her husband disappeared a few days ago and she was really worried.  We shared a short message with her, and she said after that it gave her peace.  We went back and taught the first lesson to her about Joseph Smith and again she said our visits gave her a lot of joy.  She was at church this week and I have hope she will be baptized soon. It was just one of those missionary experiences you hear about.  There is no doubt in my mind that she has been prepared to listen. And I’m so glad I got to experience it!

I just want to share my testimony that this gospel is true. I’m so glad that I know the things I know.  I know the Book of Mormon is true and I love it!  I’m so glad for the opportunity I have to go on a mission and to teach this people!  The mission teaches so many good things for life afterwards, that I don’t know how everyone doesn’t go!  I know that everyone has weaknesses, and the awesome thing about missions is that as long as we are giving our best effort the Lord will make up the rest.  It’s exactly the same in life.  It is only by grace that we are saved, as I read this morning in the scriptures, and we are imperfect.  We always make mistakes.  But as we strive to be obedient, we are promised we will be forgiven for our sins and Jesus Christ will make up the difference because of His atonement.  What a gift that is.

Something else that I thought about as we taught the plan of salvation this week, is that part of the difference between the kingdoms of glory after this life, is that in the Terrestial and Telestial kingdom we will always be looking up at the Celestial kingdom.  The glory we could have had and the opportunity to live with Christ and our Father in Heaven forever.  When the scriptures say weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, that’s why I think people are doing that.  They realize they lost so much.  That just makes me want to strive to be more obedient to be able to be accepted into the Celestial kingdom on that judgment day.  I know that as we strive to do this, and rely on the Atonement, we can attain that glory and exaltation. I’m glad I can help people achieve the same by teaching them this gospel.  Anyways, that’s all for me this week!

Elder Ollis

(Make sure you check out the Mission Field Pictures Tab!  We received many great new photos!)