Chapter 41: Strange Service

4/6/2021

Today was interesting. We were incredibly busy today and had a lot of lessons. One of those lessons was with a member who told us that they believed in the trinity and didn’t give their “allegiance” to the Prophet. My companion and I were amazed, we were amazed that someone had baptized this woman because she should not have been. She was very politically charged and told Elder Aguirre and I that we were part of “the problem”, but we were able to share a message with her, which is more than most other missionaries have been able to do.

4/7/2021

Today was a good day, we had a lot of lessons again, as well as a two hour training this morning. We had a lot of fun in the meeting and we learned better how to use Facebook. I was impressed by how much better we’ve gotten at using Facebook, our mission really is doing a lot better than we were when we first came out. We also met with some people today who knew about the history of Cedaredge and had access to the mission reports; They let it slip that Elder Aguirre and I had been finding people when this area hadn’t found in a very long time. No one had told us anything because they didn’t want us to get discouraged, but we have been seeing a lot of miracles happen as we’ve worked to share the Gospel with those around us.

4/8/2021

Today was a lot of fun. We got to do a lot of service: We worked outside with Sister Coca for an hour and a half cleaning up her yard and getting it ready for the sweltering heat of the summer. We cleaned a lot of dead stuff up, and got to mess around with some homemade irrigation, which was a lot of fun. We got to go to a food bank afterwards where we worked for a couple of hours, and it was amazing, we loved getting to help and it reminded me of working fast-food again, because of how busy it was. Everyone who we served was a lot more grateful than our fast-food customers were, though. We had a few lessons, after that to finish up our night.

4/9/2021

Today we made a Facebook video with one of the widow’s in our Ward: Sister Dearmond. We recorded her talking to us over the phone about miracles that she’d seen through prayer, and it made for a very moving testimony. That video was a lot of fun, Sister Dearmond is incredibly shy, but she wanted to help with a video. Sister Dearmond told us, “If I could talk without realizing I was talking, that would be perfect, then I wouldn’t trip over my words at all.” So we talked to her for a little bit and slowly transitioned into our recording, and before she realized it the recording was over. It was like getting a shot at the doctors office, except she wasn’t just getting immunized herself, she was helping immunize the world, but before she knew it the recording was finished and she was amazed she had given such an awesome testimony without realizing how naturally it came to her.

4/10/2021

Today was a great day. We had a few lessons today, and spent the majority of our time working on Facebook. We found someone today and scheduled our “pick-up” lesson for Tuesday, which will happen right after our interviews. We’re pretty excited every time we see the incredible ways that missionary work is still happening even amidst a global pandemic.

4/11/2021

Today we presented some of the tools that we’ve been working on as the Cedaredge Elders. Our Ward has a goal to reactivate a major portion of the Ward. We’re a ward of ~150 members, and have in the neighborhood of 300 inactive members. Our Ward leaders are really looking to us to figure out how we can reactivate these members. We’ve been working for a few weeks on this idea of doing nightly Zoom lessons that we encourage members to bring a friend to, and we think that we’ve worked out all of the potential hang-ups. We’re excited to see how everything goes.

For a spiritual thought today I want to share a section from 2nd Nephi 33:1, "when a man speaketh by the power of the Holy Ghost the power of the Holy Ghost carrieth it unto the hearts of the children of men." The greatest ability any missionary can have is to speak with the power of the Holy Ghost. This is a gift as available to the newest missionary as the eldest. The Holy Ghost is the instrument of conversion, and can be replaced by no other.