Hope you have all had a good week! I love getting your emails and hearing about your lives. Emailing time is just the best! Packages are good too...thanks to Elder Burnett for the gift and thanks to the Anderssons for sending me godis! Made my week!
Just thought I'd start out by sharing some thoughts concerning this time of the year. The holidays have come and gone, and spring has sprung. While I admire the flowers blooming and the birds singing, I'm also reminded that this time of year brings perhaps the greatest sporting events ever, in my opinion. Between March Madness, the Masters, and Conference, it really is the holiday season for me! I have my dad to thank for keeping me posted on the latest updates from these events. I know I'm on a mission, but I had to dedicate this paragraph to this special time of the year!
Anyways, I guess this was my first official week as a district leader. It's a lot of fun but it's also a lot of work, and a lot of responsibility...(insert Spider-Man quote). For that reason and many others it's been another crazy, busy week in Witney! Several meetings caused us to travel all over the zone, but we were still able to do some diligent, effective work in our assigned portion of the Lord's vineyard. Our main focus was working with members, and the Lord helped us to accomplish that. As the months have gone by, I've learned that the most effective way to do missionary work is through the members. We got to help out with home teaching in the ward and taught some of our investigators with some of the members, which is the key to moving the work forward.
Even members in other wards have helped us! We got a call last week from the Ward Mission Leader in Swindon, which is in a different mission. He's called Rafael and he's from Brazil. One of his colleagues, who lives in our mission, has shown some interest in the Church. He was able to set up an appointment for us to teach her! That happened yesterday and it went great. We taught Kimberly and she invited us back to show her more about this wonderful Gospel, so we are ecstatic! Shortly after, we ran into a woman on the street and she told us she's a less active member! Not many people know her, but we are going to start teaching her as well.
We are also teaching a Portuguese woman named Lilia. She doesn't speak too much English so we were a bit stumped as to how we could help her understand exactly what we say. I'm not exactly fluent in Portuguese, but one of our ward members is! He's from Brazil so we decided to invite him to teach Lilia with us. The language barrier was gone and Lilia understood so much more of our message, it was awesome! Hopefully we can put some people on date for baptism this upcoming week. Our goal this transfer is 2 baptisms and we believe we can achieve with the Lord's help! Member missionary work is where it's at...the miracles just keep coming!
To increase our power and our faith in God, Elder Reynolds and I decided to do yet another 40 day fast. We want to be better instruments in the Lord's hands, so we need to purify ourselves! Wish us luck as we do it again :)
Those are the highlights for the week!
I share with you my testimony about progression. Everybody loved Elder Holland's talk, but I really liked Elder Kearon's talk about refugees (there are many here) and Elder Oaks's talk about opposition in all things. Opposition can be daunting, but it has to affect us if we are to progress in any way. If we are to "press forward", there has to be something for us to press against! With opposite choices in everything, we are able to choose the right and become righteous. Satan's plan demanded no agency, no choice, and no progression while
God's plan included agency and progression and only demanded a Savior, who we know to be Jesus Christ. God's plan is perfect, and opposition is part of that Plan. I know we can endure any opposition if we trust in God and stay true to our faith. I know God's Plan is real and I know that Jesus is the Christ! In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Thank you so much for your support! Love you all and hope you have a great week.
Love, Elder Thomas
ELSM
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| Godis from the Anderssons. I love bilar! Thanks, Anderssons! |
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| A potato from The Potato |
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| Fish n' chips at the Suttons |
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