Turns Out Utah Can Be A Hard Place To Serve

    *Exhales* Life is interesting, it'll take you on a rollercoaster ride. 

      Last Monday was fantastic. We got In-N-Out for lunch, which is always a great start. Then at 6pm we headed out to do missionary work, except we had no where to go. So we ended up knocking on a door of a 7 year old who wants to get baptized, but his family is inactive. We ended up teaching him a quick lesson. Then I felt prompted to go see another inactive member, who wasn't home, but we saw their neighbor pull into the driveway and we went and talked to him. We ended up spending the next 2 hours on the corner of this street. First, we talked to a guy who said he doesn't believe in Jesus Christ but would like to know more about him. Then we talked to another guy, he's really cool and we had a great conversation with him; he wasn't interested in us coming back, but he accepted a Book of Mormon. Then we met a mom and her 2 kids. They're nondenominational, but let us share a scripture and let us come back to talk more about Christ, which we did and had a great time and we'll be going back again this week. Then we got to help their neighbor who's 2 year old broke their back windshield with a rock. That was fun, we helped clean up, they were inactive members who let us share a message about Christ. Then someone was walking by who we had a great conversation with and they told us to visit someone who just returned home from serving a mission in Dallas and actually covered where I lived. After seeing him we saw someone in their car and had a fantastic message with them. Then Elder Raine felt we should knock on another door and they let us in and I was going to share a scripture, but I felt prompted to share another scripture, which was inspired. After that I felt like we needed to go visit someone who is currently doing home MTC. He pulled up right as we got there and he was beating himself up a little bit for not following the spirit that day and we were able to really help him out as well. The whole night was just us being guided to exactly where we needed to be. 

       So there's the high, and then came the low. On Thursday, we were bombarded with Anti. Just about everything that whole day was trying to tear at our beliefs......  and it did. There's somebody in our area who's really friendly to us who used to be seen as one of the strongest members in the world. He dedicated his life to answering Anti questions and finding historical evidence for the Book of Mormon and a lot of really cool stuff and he's shown us some of this really cool stuff that would suggest the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, but he no longer believes. He doesn't even believe in God anymore. So while we were there I was asking him about it and he admittedly gave some pretty great reasons for why he doesn't believe in God and accidentally made it so that I couldn't trust that the truths that God has revealed to me actually came from God and not myself. I felt awful for about the next 12 hours. I wanted my Heavenly Father to be real so badly and that caused even greater doubt in my mind because that's what he said, you'll believe and make truth of whatever you want to be true. I felt alone, miserable, and caught in a loop. Thankfully, I wasn't a goober and I knew where to turn. I said a quick prayer that night (which I really didn't want to) and then the next day for personal study I said a really long prayer and just talked it out with my Heavenly Father for about 30 minutes, I emailed my mission President looking for help, and then read the Book of Mormon and talked through it with my companion. After studies and heading outside to help others come closer to Christ, I was feeling a lot better and the longer it's been since being there the more that I realize just how much I was ignoring that night and the next morning. 

       Overall, not a bad week. Here are a few tidbits to close. I had a baptism, technically, but it didn't feel like my baptism because I didn't even meet the kid until his baptismal interview. Another thing is that being a missionary in Utah, you hear a lot of Anti. You have people everyday tell you why they hate the church and you, why they left the church, why the doctrines or principles don't make sense, and basically anything and everything that could be spun in a negative way will be to try to get me to deny what I know to be true, but I won't. I might question or even doubt, but I know where to turn when I do and I know the testimony and the witness that I've received came from God. I've come to realize that if I were ever to go inactive, it would entirely be my fault because there's nothing I'm going to hear when I get home that I won't have already heard while here in Utah. Final note, I've been taking counseling for my mental health and I've learned a lot. I've become even more self aware of my emotions and I'll start learning the proper way to handle them because this week, I did not. I suppress my emotions way more than I knew and it's weird because it's my instinct and I had no idea it existed. I promise I'm doing well, I'm happy, and I'm growing my testimony. 

          Your Heavenly Father loves you and I love you too, Elder Blacker