Sin is a Slippery Slope

Before I forget, my ward mission leader wants to hang up pictures of missionaries' families, so if y'all could email some pics, that'd be real swell.  I wouldn't be opposed to a chili recipe and basically anything you want to surprise me with. You can just email pictures of recipes and I can just have them on my iPad. Also: If there's anything that I've actually learned on my mission so far, it's that you don't have to suffer through hard times on your own. You're probably right about students being good dad, we've got a few student contacts we could go visit. Unfortunately Joey, we're lucky to just have 1 or 2 appointments during that time. That's just when it gets dark, so it's the ideal time for it.

Realistically we end up spending a lot of time visiting contacts and doing area book work.

Probably the most noteworthy event of this week was on Wednesday. We did some street finding, and it went so poorly (only 1 person showed even polite interest) that we decided to go visit some contacts instead. We rung this guy's doorbell, knowing nothing about him other than that his name was George. All it said on his record is that in August 2013 he wanted to stop drinking. A loud, very drunk voice called out to us, in a language that was probably supposed to be English. Right as it seemed like he had no intention of letting us in, he opened the door, and despite remembering nothing about the missionaries who first met him, he welcomed us in like we were the best of chums. He's an older African man who's seen his fair share of the world. He's really nice, but it's easy to tell that unhealthy habits have caused a lot of physical, mental and spiritual pain. And it's probably safe to say that in order to ease this pain, he immerses himself even deeper in these habits. Sin is a slippery slope. Even though it was hard to tell how much we got through to him with the first lesson, we got another appointment set up. But buckle up, cause this long-winded story isn't over yet! After our lesson, George's son came in, who just recently became interested in Christianity. He said he'd like to meet with us. I'm pretty sure he has no intention of being baptized, but I think we can change that. He's a really cool guy who basically turned his life around and is now devoting his efforts to providing Ghana (which is where his family is originally from) with things like roads, electricity, water, etc. Despite his busy schedule he's really interested in meeting with us and I think the Gospel has the potential of making his efforts and his perspective even more meaningful. Not to mention the billions of other blessings he'd be able to enjoy and be a part of. So I guess the moral of the story is, if something is going terribly poorly, then God probably wants you to be doing something else. Also be wary when accepting drinks from drunk people. 

At Brandenburg Gate

Aside from that, we're making pretty good progress with the less actives we've been working with. Due to several fallen out appointments we didn't make a ton of progress in terms of existing investigators. But the work moves on, and this next week is looking like it'll be a good one.

Also, while it's nice to look back on the days with high numbers, obvious miracles and noticeable progress, the true joy comes from days when I can look back and sincerely say that I pushed myself, tried hard and trusted in God, regardless of the circumstances.

The Gospel is true. God knows us better than we know ourselves. He loves us and won't give up on us, even when we give up on him. Y'all keep being awesome!

Elder Larsen