Dig to find Treasures

Hello Everybody-

This week was pretty decent, wasn’t like FIRE like the last week, but it was still good. Did a lot of finding and what not because we are dropping all of our investigators that aren’t progressing, which were quite a few, but it’s good. We are here to help people make covenants with God and if they don’t want to do that, we will help the next person. Anyways, this week we had the conference with Elder Packard, and he was awesome! Hes a cool dude! The thing that stuck out to me the most that he talked about is that us as missionaries are trying to find people that are willing to change their lives and their souls and more importantly their hearts for God, but a lot of times us ourselves are not willing to do the same. We need to be willing to change our hearts and our desires and our will to the will of God in order to really help these people. Which I thought was absolutely amazing!

After the conference the zone leaders in our zone had to stay in Osorno for a little bit because they had a meeting at night, so they stayed and did divisions with us. So I was with Elder Linton for a couple hours and we went to go find a bunch of people that told us to come back, and NO ONE was home, it was really frustrating. I was like "Hey man we are going to enter a house. We have to. It will happen." So we were walking and I was like “Dude you feel this house??” and he was like “Yeah man I gotcha”. So we knocked on the door and started presenting ourselves and what not and the lady was like "Hey I’m really not interested, I’m Catholic and have my faith" which everyone says here ha-ha but Elder Linton was like you know what? I’m going to talk about the restoration anyways! So he started talking about the restoration and the lady was like "I’m really cold right now...so" we thought she was going to close the door but she was like "so come in!!" We went in and her son who was 18 was there too and he was super interested! He had talked with missionaries before but never in a lesson and he was so happy. So I’m excited to see what happens :) Just goes to show sometimes you just need to be a little more persistent and dig a little more to find treasures :) 

I wanted to share a quote that I read that I really like "Don't let the pursuit of me and mine get in the way of thee and thine."I really like that quote alot because in everything that we do, we need to ask ourselves if we are doing this for just ourselves or will it benefit others too. In the mission work its especially important because a lot of times we are timid to share things or bear a testimony or sometimes, just talk. But remember that we don't do the work for us, its not the gospel of Zack, its the gospel of Jesus Christ. So do it for the people! Jesus has a goal. The same that God has. They accomplish that through us. Don't impede them,from doing miracles!! I had a hard time at the beginning of my mission to talk because of the language and I didn't want people to look at me weird or judge me because of it so I didn't say much.  I prayed everyday that it would get better, but everytime I spoke I still struggled. I was confused, because I wanted to share the gospel but I couldn't. I looked retarded everytime I tried and it made me mad! But I realized a couple weeks ago that when I went into lessons and tried to speak, I didn't have the faith when I spoke, I spoke knowing I would stammer and such. When I spoke I was angry that God didn't help me. But the second that I spoke knowing God would help me and spoke thinking, "Hey this is the Church of Jesus Christ! People need this! So I'm going to talk anyways!!" That's when I broke free from my shell, when I really started loving and helping the people and giving lessons and that's when I became a missionary. 

 

So yeah! Anyways! I hope everyone was great this week! And I hope you’re all loving life! By the way WE HAVE A BAPTISM THIS WEEK!!!   Yeah baby!!!!!!!! So thank you everyone for your prayers for that ;))))) Love you all!!! Have a great week!

Elder Zack Walden