For Reasons Unknown

Man, sometimes it would be REALLY nice to have things always go according to plan, hey? This week, I really learned about what it is to trust in our Heavenly Father with ALL we got, even though we might not know the reasons WHY things are happening.

With that said, this week was definitely a tougher one. There wasn't straight up any one reason WHY things were so difficult, but having gone from teaching about 4 lessons a day to really working to find one definitely made it a struggle. We had two sorta big or difficult things happen to us this week, and man, if I hadn't have been with Elder Stone, it definitely woulda been tough to go through as well as we did. Earlier this week, in talking with Louisa, we taught her about the Law of Chastity, and what that would mean for her life, and as we closed the lesson, we asked her, 'So, with this in mind, what are you going to need to change?', to which she responded, 'Well, I need to split up with my man, and either he needs to leave, or I do'. Elder Stone and I were shocked at the direct faith she had to have an answer like that, because I'm pretty sure at that point, most people would say 'that's way too hard, I can't do that!', but she saw the one way that she really needs to go.
 However, this isn't exactly going to be easy for her. The next night, she showed up at the church telling us she needed our help, and after talking to her for a bit, we were able to help calm her down and give her the support she needs, and as she left, she went straight up to the guy she lives with, and made the decision to seperate from him. The only existing problem is, however, that she would now need to find a new place to live. At the current moment, she is still living in the same house as him, but trying to find some kind of way to get out. On our part, there really isn't anything WE can do, so our only response is to turn to our Heavenly Father with this. We've just gotta have this overwhelming trust to know that he's gunna find a way to sort this all out, so that she can be baptized on the 25th of April. Sometimes we don't know why we've gotta work through certain things, but in the end, it's all got a reason.
We also had an experience with our investigator, Nelson, this week, as well which contributed to this similar theme. We taught him a couple times this week and it was going super super well, but on Saturday night, we sorta fell into a problem with him. We were sitting in the church with him trying to help him with this problem he had arise all of a sudden, and it was one of the most tense moments I've been in so far, if not the most. It certainly was a moment where all of us were having our faith tried, and I really hope Nelson left with a new understanding of what faith really is, but it may have gone the absolute other way. Again, sometimes, these trails we face, we have no clue WHY we get them, but we've gotta trust our Father that this really is for our good and our benefit, and really, I know that it is.

So, let's not try and sounds depressing anymore, hey? Sorry if my rants sound like that, I really try not to. We found a lot of joy through these experiences. On Sunday, we had 3 investigators show up to church, Louisa being one, and we had Milcialita AND Chano show up, which was an incredible blessing. We sang 'Que Firme Alicerce' (How Firm a Foundation) for our closing hymn during sacrament meeting, and as I looked up from playing my dinky-little arrangement of it, Milcialita was absolutely beaming from where she was. That right there made all the little crappy things we went through not even matter, because heck, it was just so awesome.

Also, this week, we had President and Sister Mathews come by, which was pretty darn awesome. They came and sat in on our District Meeting, and then gave us trainings after, saying that, since we can't make it to Zone Meeting every month, they figured they could give us a little Zone Meeting just with them. After, they came by to inspect each of our houses, and let me tell ya, when you live without a mom, you forget very quickly what moms live like. As 18 and 20 year old kids, our level of cleanliness certainly wasn't the level of cleanliness held by Sister Mathews, even though we thought we'd worked our butts off to make the house all pretty and such. It sufficieth me to say that, we did not pass the inspection, though 'we did not fail', as Elder Stone says. We just stayed in that happy middle ground that exists with a thin film of dust on more surfaces than not :)
Anyways, these have been my insights from the past week, hope y'all enjoyed!
Love y'all, and GO FLAMES GO!!!
Elder Massey