Tender Mercies

The stresses of going home are so real but God knows each of his children and their trials, so I was able to see sooo many tender mercies this week, it was so humbling and amazing!

On p-day we were shopping at Walmart and this younger guy came up to us and started asking a bunch of questions and just talking all about Christ, it was so cool! He was sharing a lot of really awesome truths with us, we kept trying to offer more but he wasn't interested because he is "going to ministerial school." But it was awesome how he had absolutely no fear in coming to talk with us. One thing that he said really stood out to me, "We are working FOR Christ, we are working WITH Christ."  Then he asked, "Do y'all actually know Christ, or just believe in him? Because he is very real!" It was so cool! Christ is real and his promises our sure, and if you just trust him, you will find out how real he is. As we were wrapping up the conversation I asked how old he was, he said he was 18! It blew me away!  He had so much knowledge for an 18 year old, then I thought "Wow, I wonder if that's what people think of us?" When I first started this amazing ride, I was 18 (now I'm 20, so not much of a difference). It was amazing how much of a light he was and I hope that I live my life so that I can do the same for those around me!

As we were out tracting, we were having no success and didn't really want to be out in the hot humid weather having people either not answer the door, or tell us to go away. Then this guy answered the door who changed everything! This guy is a pastor for his church but he loves the work that Mormon's do, so he gave us a lot of praise. He told us that it is really hard and there are not a lot of people that will listen but we have to realize that we are planting and sowing seeds along the way. We may not ever be able to see all of the fruit from our labors but we can know that God will allow the seeds that we planted to grow until they become an amazing testimony. What a tender mercy!! We aren't having the most numerical success right now but we are working,and as long as we do that, the Lord is going to support us. One day we will stand before God and see all of the wonderful things that happened just because we talked with someone or shared our simple testimony. To me that is worth it.

Do y'all remember Jonita from Chipley? With this new transfer, an elder just joined our district who was serving in Chipley, and he was telling me all about what is going on now and he had nothing but good things to say about Jonita! He told me that she is doing so much missionary work and is giving the missionaries a ton of referrals. He then told me she has been doing family history work and has been able to go to the temple two times to do baptisms for the dead for her ancestors!! He went on to tell me that she also just went through the temple for the first time to get her endowments!!!!!!! I cannot even express the joy that I felt hearing him talk about Jonita! D&C 18:15 is so true!! "If it so be that you should labor all your days in crying repentance unto this people and bring, save it be one should unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father!" 

Man, this week we had zone conference.. my last one.. it was bitter sweet but it was such an amazing spiritual upliftment! As missionaries, zone conference and district meetings are the way that we can be spiritually recharged and given the extra motivation that we need to "be in the world, but not of the world." I think they correlate with the the temple and church attendance. We go through a lot in life and if we aren't careful, we will end up falling further and further away from God, but if we make going to church and the temple a regular occurrence, then we are promised that our faith and testimony will always be strengthened. 

Again, my companion is so cool! It is pretty hard to adjust to training a new missionary after being used to having zone leader companions all the time but he is teaching me so much! Just a little bit about Elder Carlson, his junior year in high school, he broke his back and it has been messed up ever since. This week his back was hurting super bad and I kept trying to help and make things better but he kept saying "I cant do anything about it and its going to hurt anyways, so may as well do something good." What a profound truth!! There are many times in our life that we can curl over and do nothing, or we can say "well it's going to hurt no matter what I do, so may as well go out and do something good." I think that is what the Lord meant when he told the Prophet Joseph Smith, "My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment; and then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt the on high."

I love y'all so much and thank y'all for all that you do and say, and all that y'all say y'all do.

Elder Schipaanboord