Monday, July 21, 2014

Dear Family and Friends,

This week was good. The week started a little rough but we pushed through it and were able to see some success at the end of the week. On Thursday during weekly planning Elder Renguul and I were talking about how we hadn't been able to find a new investigator yet that week and how hard it was going to be to meet our goal of 3. We decided to sit down and do an analysis of what we could do better and tried and come up with some ideas to be able to find better. I don't think there was 1 thing in particular that we did that was the 'missing puzzle piece' kind of thing but I think that the barrier analysis helped us to be more focused on looking for finding opportunities. On Friday we were able to find 1 and Sunday night we were able to find 2 more, one of them being a member referral that pretty much came out of nowhere. Our ward mission leader texted us Saturday night and set up a lesson with his friend for after our dinner appointment on Sunday. We had dinner with Joanna and then taught her the 1st after. She agreed to being baptized but wouldn't accept a date yet. We'll work with her on that. She said that she wants to take it slow and even though we tried to explain that it was a goal that she could set to exercise her faith she was pretty set on taking it slow, which isn't a terrible thing, at least she still wants to meet again this week. Like I said, we'll get there with her.

Things are going really well here. It's not been as hot lately so that's good. Apparently it's supposed to heat up a lot in the next coming months so that should be interesting. On a sad note, I lost my flashdrive that had a ton of talks and music. :( Sad times. Hopefully it shows up somewhere.
I love all of you and I can assure you that our Heavenly Father loves you all even more. I cannot imagine how much love God has for us all. He loves us more than we can imagine. The prophet Enoch shares with us his knowledge of the love of God for us all in the Book of Moses:
"And it came to pass that the God of heaven looked upon the residue of the people, and he wept...And Enoch said unto the Lord: How is it that thou canst weep, seeing thou art holy, and from all eternity to all eternity?...The Lord said unto Enoch: Behold these thy brethren; they are the workmanship of mine own hands, and I gave unto them their knowledge, in the day I created them; and in the Garden of Eden, gave I unto man his agency; And unto thy brethren have I said, and also given commandment, that they should love one another, and that they should choose me, their Father; but behold, they are without affection, and they hate their own blood...wherefore should not the heavens weep, seeing these shall suffer?" (Moses 7:28-37)
God's love for us is immeasurable. He weeps with us when we weep and he rejoices when we keep his commandments. No other being could have such great love for us. Remember God's love for you.
Keep it real,

Elder Sanderson