Email to Family
In my missionary handbook, I'm not supposed to invite you to fast for my investigators. I can't stop you of course, but Patrick is being.. well, basically we're dropping him. He attends a church that is anti-Mormon and can't accept that Satan is Jesus' brother. Things are looking grim with his baptism. I don't expect to be meeting with him after this week. This week was actually kinda bogus. I know I sent you that list of people we're working with, but we dropped 3 of these people, one of which is headed down the Jehovah Witness route, sigh. My area is honestly a hit or miss. My mission is awesome, but is very frustrating as well. Typically, me and Elder Kirkham find a new investigator every week, but the people we're working with aren't very solid. It doesn't feel like much is getting done here. Our neighbor Gary who I thought was gonna breakthrough only seems interested in the church when he's vulnerable. I'm not very fond of having zero baptisms in 3 months, that's for sure. We found a golden investigator through Mormon.org like she's super legit. We taught her 3 lessons in four days, and she said the church feels right. She would easily get baptized, except guess what? She's moving in 2 weeks -_-
It's hard understanding why God would want His work done at a pace that feels so slow. My contribution to the Maple ward feels so slim. Hesperia's hard.
So that's my feelings in a nutshell. But we had an off week, so this one has to be good, right?
This week is the end of the transfer though, so we'll see what happens! I think i'll stay one more transfer, so lets hope that this transfer is different (:
I love you very much and want so badly for things to be going awesome by the time mother's day rolls around. Have a good week (: I love you.
Love,
Elder Shawn Lyle Bennion
Email to Ben and KoriAnn
Trust me, as a missionary, I feel you. Satan works on me aaaalllll the time and this past week especially. He's stupid. We had so many appointments cancel and Patrick's being unreasonable, Catey is flaky, and well, we aren't working with very legit people. It's very hard that I can't control people's agency haha. It's hard putting forth an effort to make someone's life better and consistently happier and they don't accept the invitation.
It's hard feeling satisfactory in your work when your expectations aren't being met. It makes it a difficulty to feel the spirit and my patience still runs slim. I try very hard to find joy within my mission and for some odd reason, I let these negatives triumph. The scriptures and my prayers satisfy me temporarily because it doesn't take long before I find myself irritated with how things are. I'm a missionary who expects results too quickly I guess. I just keep having this wrestle with God, but it makes me understand why there are unanswered prayers. Those prayers are some of the more important ones that you'll be grateful for eventually. I sure would hate to see every single one of prayers answered and see them turn into a catastrophe because that isn't the way they are supposed to be. Oi. Missions are tough.
I really hope this week kicks butt because I could really use it. Have an awesome Easter! Love you!
Love,
Elder Shawn Lyle Bennion
