Out Here Preachin'

The most glorious part of serving a mission is when you get to see some of the fruits of your labors! These kids just got baptized. Their mom (in the back) and their youngest brother got baptized while Elder Anderson and I were still companions back in the Springs Zone. The other siblings started taking the lessons and this past Saturday I got to go back for their baptisms! It was a cool moment to see the rest of the kids join the church and now they are just one big, happy, Mormon family. :)

If I needed to sum up my mission in a picture, this would be it. Just a nice, sunny day out in a middle-class neighborhood walking around with a Book of Mormon and some Restoration pamphlets knocking on doors and talking to everyone we see. It doesn't get more NLVW (Nevada Las Vegas West) Missionary than this. 

February 15, 2016

Another week down. A doctor in our ward gave me some antibiotics that I think really helped and so we were able to get back onto our feet again. We had a lady finally come to church yesterday that we've been working with for a while so we were pretty stoked about that!

We are going into the last week of the transfer now. I requested to stay another with Elder Ernst, but I talked with President about maybe getting to do something special for my last two transfers. I really am kind of worn out from being a Zone Leader for so long, and I wouldn't mind dropping and not having to be in leadership any more. I asked President if for my last 3 months I could go back to the Flamingo Ward where I started my mission. I think it would be super cool to finish where I started! Here's hoping hints can work out. ;)

The kind of crazy thing that happened this week was the alternator in our jeep died and our car stalled out in the middle of a super busy intersection. The car got locked in park so we couldn't push it out of the way of oncoming traffic. So needless to say a lot of people got angry at us as we waited for another set of missionaries to come and jump our car. Then, as we were driving it to the dealership, it died on us again and we had to push it off of a busy intersection to a neighboring parking lot so it could get jumped again. 'Twas a pretty hectic day.

We also had one of those classic two hour discussions in someone's home. We were visiting a less active family, and the wife just started debating with us hard core. It was honestly a very sad sight to see, because the husband and wife were arguing with each other and raising their voices at times right in front of us and their kids. The Spirit was not there at all and it was an unpleasant atmosphere. It makes me so sad to see that. If the family would just try to live the gospel of Jesus Christ and have faith in God, the atmosphere would be completely different in their home.

Simply put, my thought for this week is this: It's important to know the gospel is true, but it's more important to be true to what you know. I have met a ton of less actives here who all claim they know the church to be true, yet they don't live its standards. If the knowledge you have doesn't change your behavior, then that knowledge is wasted.

Have a wonderful week!

-Elder Alley