I've Never Wanted To Pet A Dog

      All in all this has been a pretty good week. Unfortunately, all but one of our progressing people had to cancel their meetings with us. The only one that didn't is the girl that we knocked on the door and then she told us that she wants to be baptized but doesn't know how. Her name is Cheylyn or Shy as her family calls her and they are an awesome family. When we told them that we can only have dinner appointments on Saturday and Sunday they decided that they would bring us some of their dinner to our apartment. They did that twice this week and they are really good at cooking, dare I say better than Elder Stewart? I don't know, I haven't decided yet, but it's definitely better than Dino Nuggets. My companion eats a lot of Dino Nuggets as do I now that they're around the house. We also eat a lot of Otter Pops ever since he's been here. We're planning on putting Shy on date tonight though and she'll probably be baptized by the end of transfer. 

We found 4 "new"s this week, bringing our total for the transfer to 12 or the same amount we found during the entirety of last transfer and we're only 2 weeks in. 

      We also had a lesson with someone we found last week that was really interesting. The guy kept asking very targeted questions trying to get us into a hole and anytime we explained it well he'd say, "we're talking past each other, we're saying the same words that mean different things." The woman was so much more open, she asked genuine questions actually wanting to understand and at the end she said, I want you guys to be at the point that I am where if there was a way to know without doubt what the true church is I would leave my friends and my family behind to follow it. As missionaries that's the most exciting thing somebody can say because guess what? There is a way to know without a shadow of doubt whether the church is true or not. Moroni 10:4-5 the promise given at the end of the Book of Mormon, 

"4 And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.

5 And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things."  

That's how I learned for myself without a shadow of doubt that the Book of Mormon is the word of God and anyone else can do the same and know for themselves if it's true that's why it's exciting to hear that from her. It just takes effort and sincerity for that promise to be fulfilled and to know without doubt that the Book of Mormon is true. 

      I also noticed how much I've grown this week. We went on exchanges and I led the area, meaning that I was in charge of where we were going and what we were doing, and I did a really great job with it. We didn't even daily plan the night before so I led the area completely on my own. I've led the area before and I didn't do well with it, once after about a half an hour I ran out of stuff to do. I have the basics of missionary work down now. I'm not the best at it, but I know my way around. Basically, I'm a Level 2 at In-N-Out, I don't have a lot of responsibility, but I no longer need a manager around me to do the jobs that I can do. Also, In-N-Out is now in the zone which means I can go there during P day so that's exciting. Another way I've seen a lot of change in myself is I wanted to pet a dog. We walked by a house and there was a dog that clearly just wanted to play with us and we had to just keep walking. As we were walking that's when I thought, I'm sorry I just want to pet you. Immediately I was like Whoa! Well that's new. I never had a dog growing up and anytime dogs were around I shyed away from them, but now I've been in a lot of homes with dogs and seen how to get them to be your friend and it works. Dogs are awesome when they're your friend. But...

   

Ducks are still the best, 

Elder Blacker