ELDER VAWDREY RETURNS HOME FROM HIS MISSION IN:

Monday, April 29, 2013

23rd Hour, 59th minute, 59th second

Familia y Amigos,
 
First of all, I want to shout out a Feliz Cumpleanos to my older sister Brittni! I hope you have an amazing day and please know how grateful I am for your friendship, testimony, and example. You deserve a great birthday, so I hope it's a great one to remember!

The warmer weather is finally starting to settle in and I'm pretty excited for it. I pulled out all my short sleeve shirts today and I'm ready for summer. I've already got sunburned, so my face just keeps getting redder! haha I'll probably have to bring out the sunscreen one of these days.

This past week was full of many little miracles once again. I feel like my testimony was strengthened on Tuesday of the saying from Elder Packer and Elder Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve: "The Lord blessed me in the 23rd hour, 59th minute, and 59th second." Elder Wells and I planned to knock part of a trailer park for an hour on Tuesday and that was the day when we didn't have our truck. So we were walking. Well, when we got dropped off at this trailer park by the other Elders, we quickly realized that it was freezing cold outside. We just decided to man up against it and started knocking some doors. Unfortunately, like the first 5 doors, nobody answered. Then, pretty soon some people started answering their doors but just didn't really have any interest in hearing the message or they were leaving to go to work. 

Well, there was ONE more door left in the trailer park to knock. As you can probably guess what happened, we knocked the door and a guy answered the door and before we even said anything he invited us inside his home! We were super excited. We got to know him for a bit and then he had a few questions for us regarding why there are so many churches in the world today? It was awesome. We taught him about the Restoration and he loved it. At the end of the lesson, we asked him if he would offer the closing prayer, and he was like: Yeah, sure! In his prayer, he thanked God that we were able to help him resolve his doubts. I felt so good when I heard that because I knew that it wasn't us that resolved his doubts...only the Spirit can do that. I'm grateful that I can be an instrument in God's hands to help others find answers to their doubts or questions. We arent sure how things will end up with this guy because he has a job with crazy hours, but we are going to try passing by again to see if we can visit with the rest of his family that were home when we visited. If anything, my testimony grew of God's blessings in our lives and that the Spirit is the one that resolves our concerns.

We also were able to meet with a few new families this week so we are hoping that we can continue to meet with some of them this week. Our other investigators are still progressing. The one we were hoping would be baptized soon is working through a few things...significant enough that unfortunately she isn't going to be ready for baptism this next Saturday. But we believe that she will make that decision soon. She knows the church is true and she has felt the Spirit, so we just need to help her remember that and then as she acts on her faith we trust that she will be ready for baptism and soon to enter the temple! We are hoping that she can have a big spiritual experience again this upcoming week!

Oh, we had the opportunity to do exchanges with the Elders in Lexington and that was a blast to go back and to work with the Elders there. We had some good experiences and learned a lot. As time goes on, I realize more and more that as we forget ourselves and just serve others, then we find ourselves. It's easier said than done but the joy that comes from doing missionary work and serving others is priceless.

I hope you all have a great week. Thanks for everything. Love you. I know this is the true church!

Elder Vawdrey

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