Another One Down!

Elder Martinez & Elder Alley being treated to Applebee's
by a member of their ward

Palace Station is right next to where they were tracting last week

April 20, 2015

The usual happened in the missionary work this week. Exchanges were had, lessons were taught, church was once again not attended by those we ask to join us. Ya know, the usual.

One really cool thing from this past week though, was that I had to go on an emergency exchange with Elder Clapp because Elder White was sick. So we went (I got to call bingo again, no controversy this time, though) and then we had a first lesson with a guy named Marvin. Super solid guy. He has a Girlfriend who he refers to as his "Future Wife" so no worries there and two teenage sons. We taught his the first lesson, and it was SO GOOD! The spirit was there the entire time and he was loving everything that we were saying. At the end we asked him to pray and ask God if Joseph Smith really was a prophet of God or not. He did. In fact he said, "My God in the name of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, will you tell me if Joseph Smith was your called prophet?" and then some other stuff and then he closed it. We were sitting there in silence for a couple seconds and then he said, "Guys, I don't know that this feeling is, but I'm like all calm and tingly all over" and being the solid missionaries that Elder Clapp and I are we jumped on that faster than Michael onto his Sunday dinner after a fast and told him that that feeling was the Holy Spirit testifying to him that it's true!

He accepted the invitation to be baptized and it was all super! We left his house, and the member who was with us stopped us and said, "Boys, I've been teaching missionary discussions for over 40 years, both as a missionary and a member, and that.... was the best teaching of the restoration I have ever witnessed." That was so humbling to hear, and Elder Clapp and I were geeking out like little girls. So as we looked back at it, this is what we came to realize the difference was: we didn't teach the restoration lesson, we taught the restoration as it applies to Marvin! As missionaries we don't teach lessons, we teach people! We ask them questions to find out where they are in their lives and then we teach them the gospel truths that will help them as the Spirit directs us. Man, it is just such an amazing experience to be able to teach people in such an amazing way because it truly has opened my eyes and helped me realize just how universal this gospel is. EVERYONE needs this because it can improve EVERY aspect of our lives.

So that was cool. But it was hard to return back to our Spanish area because no one is progressing there right now. Elder Martinez and I were talking about it yesterday. We've both been working really hard together, we've had some of the best lessons of our missions together, yet no one is progressing. :/ It kinda makes you wonder where all your effort is going, but we both know that the Lord is behind this work and so we are just going to keep on trucking and working hard because that's all we can do! We ask for your prayers, though, in our behalf that we can start to see the fruits of our hard work here in our area by finding new people to teach and by helping those we are teaching to reach the goal of baptism.

That's it for this week, love y'all!

Con Amor,

Elder Alley