Apr 18: Finding faith

I must say that this family has been the hardest for me so far. The Parreno family is an amazing Christian family of three kids and the father who goes out to sea every few months. They began to be taught two years ago, but the mother, Cythia, did not get a testimony and the father, Joel, was out to sea. The mother and kids would have been baptized if they had been able to get written permission from Joel. They have many member friends. Lessons with them are difficult because they get side tracked easy and like to share their own understanding. The kids are just amazing and need to be members, however, they get bored in the lessons sometimes, thus not always present. We almost gave up on them two weeks ago because they still have not obtained a testimony from their prayer and scripture study. We saw a greater light when they attended General Conference and loved it. Because they only missed one week of church, they could still be baptized in April. To add to the story, we just found out the Joel can be called at any time now to go back out to sea.

I have learned to love this family like many of the others we serve. They are now willing to be baptized (I believe that is because the spirit has really been working on them with our prayers and the prayers of the members), but I do not want to until they can say they Joseph Smith is a prophet. We just taught them fasting yesterday – a last minutes decision – and told them we will hold a special fast for them, including some members, to really feel that the church is true. They agreed and even their brother who has sat in on some lesson, who will visit his home in the country for the next few will said that he will join us. I almost cried last Sunday trying to get another male father to visit and just read the Book of Mormon with them. He just felt so overwhelmed with his job and such that he has almost become an inactive church goer.

My companion, Elder Perry, is a great missionary that I have really learned to love. It is amazing to see how fast the progression is for new missionaries. I remember that first transfer or two seemed to take a lot longer than this last transfer has been. Just today he was talking about college and plans afterward and mentioned that maybe he would attend BYUH for a term. I got pretty excited and told him I would visit him if he did.

I have been on quite a few exchanges now which always seem to tire me out. Just two days ago I went on exchanges with Elder Caser, a new Pilipino missionary who is struggle just a bit, and I felt that he did not really learn that much from our exchanges. Well, yesterday at district meeting he gave a little talk about finding people and mentioned our experiences the previous day emotionally. Then Elder Perry talked about the importance of loving your companions and really made me feel better about how I was going as a trainer.

There are so many things I still need to learn, but a big problem I seem to have is being just a little too hard on myself. I love the Lord and I love being a missionary. I love my family more than every before, so I just want to actually be the missionary that I can… I see that so much needs to be done here and just wonder if I were a bit better could I be the one that can do it. My faith has grown more than I imagined it could, but found it still lacking. Then after all is said, I feel the comfort of the spirit calm my soul, urging me on. This work is grand.