Dear Mom,
This past week may have been one of the most challenging weeks I have ever had on my mission. We had three potential investigators lined up to have lessons with, and all three of them didn't work out. Two told us they weren't interested anymore before we could even teach them and one family told us to come back and then never answered the door...and we could hear them inside. This is also while we were fasting to find people to teach. We contacted A LOT of nonmembers all throughout the beginning of the week, and we started writing down all of the responses of rejection we heard. My personal favorite was a lady who told us she didn't accept other people and that she was a Baptist. After our third potential investigator turned us down, Sister Lewis and I got in our car and just looked at each other. We were really discouraged, so we prayed and asked Heavenly Father what we should do. We both felt that we really need to strengthen the members here and get the member missionary work on fire! So right then and there we wrote down a bunch of ideas to help strengthen our wards. Sister Lewis turned to me and said "What are we doing?! We're musical! Lets use music!" (she plays piano). So we have been talking to all of the Young Women's President's about planning Youth Music Night's in each of the wards. We feel really good about using music to spread the gospel and to help the members get excited about missionary work, so I am really excited! Of course I was also worried about Juke, and President Chambers called me in the middle of the week to tell me about the fast you guys were going to have. He told me that my hard work will bless you all while I am away, and I said "I hope so..." and he paused and said "It will." So that really comforted me and helped me to push through this past week. Sister Lewis and I are definitely learning patience, humility, diligence, and a lot of adaptation to the type of missionary work that needs to happen in this area. I am really excited about our new approach, we've been calling it our new "Game Plan" - and other people seem excited about it, too! Yesterday as we were fasting for Juke (Sister Lewis fasted for us, too- she is amazing) we decided randomly to go to the 6th Ward's Relief Society. The lesson was about how the Savior is the Master Healer. We read several accounts of how He healed people in the scriptures including Luke 8:41-56, John 4:46-53, John 9:1-7, and John 11:1-45. The Sister who was teaching just told us to think about these different accounts and what stood out to us from them. Then at the end she was talking about her son's friend who has disabilities, and how Jesus Christ not only heals us from spiritual things, but physical things as well. After she bore her testimony she left time for us to bear our testimonies, and no one was getting up- and all of the sudden the spirit literally said: "Go." So I got up and talked about Juke and how I really do know that someday his body will be perfect and he will be healed. I know that the Atonement is real and that someday we will all be free from pain and sorrow, and we will be together forever. After I bore my testimony, I felt peaceful and happy, and that everything would be okay. I know it will be, and even though I'm not there right now I know that the Lord is always there for us. I love you so much and everything will turn out alright. This gospel is amazing, and I am so grateful we have it to lean on and to learn from.
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