Another Week

Sorry, I forgot I hadn't posted Derek's June 8th letter.

"So, another week went by, I honestly have no idea what happened... haha that's definitely not a good sign. I'm trying to think of any cool experiences, but they seem to be in short supply this week. We'll start with the bad news. Well, [the investigator] wasn't baptized this Sunday, but hopefully he will be this Sunday.... As for our [two] other baptismal dates, ...well, we lost them... We can't get in contact with [one] and [the other] moved to Baltimore. So, we're kind of in bad shape there. Actually it's been rather frustrating, we honestly have 1 investigator this week, that's it! It's super hard to find people here, and we've been trying to work with members and less active members as well to find people to teach, unfortunately nothing is happening so far. In Langley Park I felt like I could feel when we were working the area correctly. We tried a variety of things and eventually we changed what we were doing and things clicked. Here, since we're both pretty new in the area it's proving to be a lot harder to determine how to get things to work out, or how to work the area, especially since for me it's completely different from Langley Park. Hopefully things start to pick up a little bit though, and hopefully we can receive the knowledge and revelation we need. We do have one baptismal date though... we're not too sure how solid he is right now since we've only had one lesson with him, but he seems pretty cool and willing to progress so we'll see what happens.

Other than that, we went on exchanges with the Zone Leaders the other day! It was cool to get to learn from them, and we saw some cool miracles in their area. Haha, that day we got four b-dates, 3 new investigators and an incredible miracle besides all that! It was honestly an incredible day! The cool miracle was we were walking by this one apartment town house complex and this lady called us over. The first thing she says to us is that she wants to change religions because the one she's in doesn't have enough light for her, as in spiritual light. Needless to say we were slightly taken off our guard and stunned at the miracle! She was very open, and even asked us if we had any literature for her to read about our church, haha yep a question that makes every missionary super happy! She was an english speaker so we passed her off to the English missionaries, and after their first meeting she now has a baptismal date for the 18th of June. Haha, I think the Lord just does that some times to remind us that he's there and that it really isn't our work at all! She said to us that as we walked by she heard a voice say to her, "ask those guys about their church". God definitely works with his children, I guess he's just biding his time in Olney ;)"

"...one thing I never anticipated before the mission was beginning to not trust people, to not want to talk to some people because you just feel like they're lying to you because they seem to do it so often. Nevertheless, we must talk to everyone, we have no right to deny... people any chance of coming into His restored Gospel. Yeah, thankfully the Lord definitely reminded me of that."

"Over here it has been pretty hot, 90 degrees or more and humid! Luckily since I'm now in a car it doesn't bother me too much!"

"Unfortunately here it seems like I have allergies... It's horrible, every once in awhile my eyes get super red and I can barely keep my eyes open. I had this weird thing happen where I honestly could no keep my eyes open as I was biking, it was really weird. Not too enjoyable, but I bought some allergy pills so hopefully they help!"

"It's really sad, I found out I've gained 15 pounds since I entered the MTC, I now weigh 163, yeah, fat! Still, I don't feel like I gained 15 pounds, I'm definitely heavier, but I didn't think too much."

Derek visiting a museum on P-Day.