Dear family and friends,
This week was... unique. A lot of great stuff happened and some other not so good things. Let's start with the good, shall we?
None of our lessons were outstandingly unusually breathtakingly earth-shatteringly amazing, but there was one that Elder Clegg and I are super excited about! Amber, the investigator whose life seems to have flipped-upside down ever since she started meeting with us, accepted a baptismal date invitation! She will be baptized on 27 Feb. Actually, it could be way sooner than that. As we were making the lesson plans that morning, Elder Clegg and I decided on the 27th as a good date for her because we knew she had a smoking problem and would likely need some time to quit. When we arrived at her house, we found out that she found out that she is pregnant! So she quit smoking cold turkey. Awesome! She has really great faith.
We also got to teach part of a mission prep class for the young men. It was great to be able to help out.
Other fun things included a man we met who claimed that he was "a prophet on social media" (whatever that means) and that if we were real Christians we would "do something 'bout da skreets". He was yelling before we even talked to him and trying to debate with us. We couldn't really get a word in and it was really sad that he rejected our message before we even tried to share it, but it always amuses me when really interesting people do really interesting things. Hopefully he'll be a little more calm the next time missionaries come his way.
The not so good stuff is basically this: Elder Clegg is going home to get surgery and both of us were in a lot of pain all week long. So we didn't exactly get as much done as we hoped. Please continually keep us in your prayers! Prayers work (for example: Amber!).
I know that God loves us so much that He allows us to deal with difficult experiences so that we can learn and grow. Trials are a refining process. They help us to become more humble and identify our biggest weaknesses and our dependence on the Lord. They are opportunities to become stronger and to learn more about God... and ourselves. They also allow us to become more like Christ. I testify that He endured the most horrible of all trials that could conceivably be endured. Because He has felt our pain and our sufferings He can perfectly empathize with us and carry us. He's already been through it all, and I know that that is true. The Book of Mormon is the word of God and it testifies of the Atonement of Christ. I also know that the Holy Ghost is alive and working to testify to the hearts of men and women everywhere that Jesus is the Christ, the gospel has been restored, and that through the Atonement we can find strength through hard times.
With love,
Elder Schank
