Lots of walking. nothing but walking, really. It's a real struggle. I got on my bike on Friday for about half a mile and my side hurt so bad I got off and sat down on the sidewalk. Good times. So then we walked. Like pioneer children we walked and walked and walked and walked.... and waaaaaaaalked. And all the walking made my knee hurt way worse! So I bought a knee brace, and that's helped. Until God tells me to slow down, I can't slow down, the kingdom of God has to roll forth somehow, haha.
I guess we're doing a good job and God knows we can survive without as much support, because people have been real rude to us the past couple days! It's cool though, people were probably way more rude to Noah when he was building an ark. People just need to be less sour. I keep trying to tell them the gospel can help with that, but they don't let me say it! Silly people.
Anyway, we were out walking and this guy literally walks out of a field to talk to us. Like he was walking through this totally deserted field and came up to us just as we passed by. He's all "Hey Elders! I used to be a Mormon!" And he rambled on to us for a long time. I was like is this guy good? is he fine? And then he finally mentioned that he'd been drinking already and it made more sense. For some reason inactive members just seem to come back a lot more when they're drunk. he told us all about how he'd fallen away and felt kinda incomplete and wanted to be reconciled with his family but he felt too prideful. He didn't let us talk much, but we tried to get the idea across to just... come back. But oh well. Someday he will I bet. God might respect our agency, but He sure doesn't let people go their whole lives without a fight.
Let's see, other blessings of walking everywhere... Spending time more wisely? We need to be out as long as we can because it takes a million years to get everywhere. And while we can ask for rides sometimes... that's a lot of asking for rides. Because all the areas where it feels like work needs to be done are not right next to our apartment, haha. It could be worse, it could be not windy and 70 degrees. Except for one afternoon, the weather has been beautiful this week!
That one afternoon was really really wet though. We got dropped off near our dinner with an hour or so to tract. Then right after our ride left, it started pouring. There was thunder and lightning too. But the Spirit was like "KNOCK ON DOORS, YOU FEEL GOOD." so we did. And finally, right before dinner, after knocking in the rain for an hour, we knocked on our dinner's neighbor's door, and it turns out that they're a part-member family that no one knew was there! So that was actually really cool. We only got to talk to them for a minute though.
On that same day we had zone conference. It was good, but there was so much talk of diligence and all that is required to have spiritual power, and with all the trouble we've had and all my struggles I just felt totally and completely inadequate and like I couldn't possibly be good enough for what God wanted from me. But then President got up and said it seemed like some of us felt that we were just too inadequate and couldn't measure up and I was like "Me! Exactly!" And then he told us not to worry- as long as we're trying and sacrificing, we are only one sacrament meeting away from being perfect. What a comforting thought. I mean, we have general conference and then stake conference in a row, but at least we had this past sunday! And it gives us something to look forward to. And back to. I suppose that's really in the spirit of the Atonement, huh?
So just remember. You're only one sacrament meeting away.
Elder Adams
No comments:
Post a Comment