Letter Home - Week 47

Hey family!

This week has been good. We went on a trade off with Elder Nixon and Elder Arzu. They are having a tough time. The trade off was good and we were able to have a day full of great lessons and good contacting but even after they still weren't getting along. I don't know how much it helped. They've had several arguments with each other and it makes it difficult for them to have the spirit. I also went on a trade off with Elder Mikolyski since Elder Merritt is down with his wisdom teeth removal. It was really good. We were able to finish off the night visiting with a recent convert named Odellia who has been having a hard time lately and has missed church the past few weeks. She is great but her circumstances are a burden on her and make things difficult but we were able to go there and have a great spiritual lesson to help lift the burden and it did. She committed to come to church. She was really happy and grateful that we came. It made us both really happy as well that we could help her. We taught Janelle about eternal families and the temple ordinances and it was a really powerful lesson. It was what she needed. We went through the new pamphlet about it and helped her understand the end goal of living in eternal families with Heavenly Father and road to get there. She still has doubts and fears. She wants to make the right decision and I think she is afraid of making the wrong decision. We talked about her testimony more. She isn't firm on her testimony of the restoration through Joseph Smith and so we invited her to pray. We gave Ether 12 to her along with a good talk about faith by Elder Holland called The Best Is Yet To Be where it refers to Lot's wife and how she looked back. I think it's one that will really help her. We will teach her more about faith and overcoming fear. We are really trying to do all we can to help her. She is such a great individual and has a wonderful family. We taught Joan as well. We finished the basic commandments and helped her understand about prayer, scripture study, and church and how Heavenly Father expects us to obey and He will bless. She has financial concerns which makes it hard for her to come to church. We also asked about her testimony and she found and understood that she needed to pray. We committed her to do so and we will follow up with her on that. We've begun teaching quite a few new people that are showing some good signs. We started teaching a lady named Porsha and she is great. She read what we left, asks good questions and is committed. We committed her to be baptized and she committed herself to work towards July 23. We hope all goes well with that. We still have plans to find and begin teaching as many new people as we can. We are finding that a lot of the people that we are teaching are the elect of God but aren't quite ready now. We are dropping many of them. It's hard and sad but necessary. It will only help them in the future. We again weren't able to have anyone come to church. That was hard. It makes me really concerned for a lot of these great people that we are teaching. Joan had her concerns but she said she will be getting paid next week and said she will come next week. Janelle read but she didn't come to church. With Father's day she went elsewhere with family. I hope and pray for them and do all I can for these people that I love but ultimately it's their decision. It's hard. I love you all so much. I think about you and pray for you. Keep doing good. Well I hope you have a great week.

Love,

Elder King