17 & 24 Sept 2019: Find the Elect!
Hi everyone!
I dont have as much time to write as I thought I would, but there were so many cool experiences that we had while doing the Lord's work here in Henderson.
We had the opportunity to be interviewed by President Youngblood. In my interview, we discussed how we could further the work in the Spanish speaking branch I am serving in, because it is a wonderful area and we need to be doing so much better in it. There are so many prepared people here!
We also had the opportunity to receive training from our Area President, Elder Paul Pieper of the Seventy. That was awesome. That is where the title of my email comes from, because he kept saying to us that we need to "find the elect children of God" This phrase refers to those who will receive us because they have prepared and been prepared by the Lord to receive us. It truly was a blessing to partake of that training and learn how crucial it is to find those people! They are just waiting, wheter they know it or not, to have us share the gospel with them. President Pieper also talked to all the Spanish Speaking missionaries, which was fun, because he told us that spanish speaking people are more readily receptive to our message and are generally more loving. That is definitely true!
We had a few really cool miracles happen because of us trying to find the elect. One happened because we went to an area that we had received a referral for a resident there probably 20 times, probably because of a glitch in the referral database system. Anyway, we get to the area, and it is literally all construction sites except for a tiny apartment complex and a really run down trailer park. We went to the apartment complex and tried to visit this man, who technically wasnt part of our area because he speaks english, and it turned out that he didnt live there. But on our way back, we talked to this guy fixing his car, and it turns out he was from Honduras and spoke Spanish! He was working, but he lives in the branch!!! That was a miracle, getting to know him, and he opened right up to us about himself, and it was a blessing to be able to teach him the Doctrine of Christ.
We also were able to find someone through helping him change his tire. It was Saturday, and we were about to go to dinner, when we saw our dinner appointment's neighbor, so we talked to him and offered help, and he asked us if we had a lug wrench. We didnt, but we knew the people we were going to have dinner with did, so we went over there, grabbed the wrench, and then went back and helped them change their tire. They were super grateful! At first they werent too interested in what we did as missionaries, but as we talked to one of them, Zach, we saw his heart soften, and he started to express interest in what we do, and accepted a return appointment, which sadly fell through yesterday. It was a miraculous experience all the same.
I know the work I am doing is literally guided by heavenly forces, that Heavenly Father, and the Savior, whom I represent, know each and every person I meet, and desires them to come return to live with them one day. It is the greatest blessing of my life to be serving them here in Las Vegas.
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So that was last week's email. For some reason, it sat in my drafts for the whole week and I didnt realize until a few days ago that it didnt send.
It was a rather hard week as far as the work goes. We had a few people decide to discontinue meeting with us. That is hard, solely because I know how much they would be blessed by following this gospel, and following the Savior and His path can do for them, and they do too as well, to a certain extent, but they still decide not to go through with it.
We had zone conference yesterday. It was awesome. I got to sing in it with Elder Sierra, and Elder Niupulusu, who is from American Samoa, and Sister Jensen, a missionary in our zone as well. It was a cool little miracle, because on Friday, we decided to change the song we were going to sing. The one we changed it to was called "When Someone Cares" talking about how Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ care about all of us individually. There was an awkquard part of zone conference after we had sung that piece, where President Youngblood was supposed to give a training, but he was on a phone call, and so Sister Youngblood got up and thanked us for singing that song, because it reminded her of when she used to sing it to her daughters when they were babies. So a little miracle happened right there that was pretty cool.
Also yesterday, we had another little miracle, in which we were planning after zone conference for the rest of our day, and I had the impression that we were going to find someone to teach, in the neighborhood we were going to, that was a man around the age of 30 to 40. We went to this neighborhood, and it was dark, and in these nicer neighborhoods they dont necessarily take too kindly to people knocking on their doors after the sun goes down. It goes down really early here, like 6:45. We knocked on this man's door, who was previously taught in our records, and he opened the door, and he was this built, stocky military guy from Kentucky, with an expressionless face. It was a little awkquard at first because of that, but we talked, and got to know him, and he actually said that he wanted to meet with us! It was awesome! We followed the Spirit and it worked!
Have a great week!
Elder Lovell
Pics
Zone Conference!!
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