4/8/13
Hello
Family and Friends,
Man, it
feels like I wrote home just yesterday... this week has gone by really fast!
Well, as I said last week, Elder Adams and I played ping pong last p-day. I'll
admit, before we started playing I didn't think he was going to be much of a
challenge... But boy was I humbled! Elder Adams has some skills on the ping
pong table! He beat me pretty bad a couple times, but its ok, we're going to
play again today after we finish writing emails so this time he's going down.
We got
some more snow this week which is weird. It didn't really stick, but it was
super cold and snowed for several hours. Of course this all happened on the day
that we were outside doing service for a family that just moved into the area.
Even in the snow, finding time to serve others is always great. Teaching the
gospel really isn't the only thing we do as missionaries. We are representatives
of Jesus Christ and try our best to serve others as He would.
Of course
General Conference was amazing! General Conference is like Christmas for a
missionary. We watched the Saturday morning session live at 6 pm our time.
Before Conference started on Saturday, Eder Adams and I felt like we should get
to the church early to set up. We got there at 4:30 which we originally thought
was way too early. However, when we got there, we were surprised to see that
none of the power in the church was working. In the past, we've had lots of
trouble with the electricity in our old building, but normally the power only
goes out in sections of the building. This time, everything was 100 percent
dead. This was obviously bad news because no power means no conference and we
were supposed to have 2 investigators come watch it with us. For the next hour,
we did what we could to play around with the circuit breakers and what not, but
nothing we did was working. We called members of the ward but nobody knew how
to get the electricity back on and nobody was able to come over and help us.
Unfortunately, Elder Adams and I don't know a whole lot about electricity and
what not, so the situation wasn't looking too good. It was almost 5:30 (half
hour before conference) and one of our investigators was supposed to show up at
any time. (I'll explain why she came early later). Again, at that time, things
weren't looking to good. We really didn't want to call our investigators and
cancel, but at the same time we didn't want them to show up for nothing if we
couldn't get the power back on. Personally, I said a prayer and just simply
said "Father in Heaven, Elder Adams and I don't know how to fix this
problem, but we are doing the best we can to turn the electricity back on so we
can give Thy children a chance to hear the words of Thy Prophet. Please help us
find a way to fix this." I know Elder Adams was praying too. After praying,
we decided to go back to a circuit breaker thing outside. We had already
flipped all of the switches on this particular unit several times before, but
we felt like we should try again. Once again we flipped the switches... and
nothing happened. We were really discouraged and Elder Adams was about to call
our investigators and cancel. However, we decided to try the same thing one
more time. This time the power turned on! I don't know why it took several
attempts at doing the same thing to get the power back on. I really don't
understand what happened at an electrical level, but I do know that it was a
miracle and that this was an answer to prayer. God knows and can do all things.
Sometimes in life we don't know what to do, or how to do it, but I know that
everything is in God's hands.
We got
the power on right before Joelle showed up at 5:30 pm. She came a half hour
early because she was going to follow us to the house of another one of our
investigators. Claude Franchard is blind and obviously can't drive, but he said
he wanted to watch conference with us. It is against mission rules for us to
drive anyone else in our car. None of the members in our branch were able to
pick up Mr. Franchard for us so we asked Joelle if she would follow us to his
house and pick him up and take him to the church. Joelle, being the most
amazing investigator who has ever investigated the church, was able to follow
us and pick him up. It was just me, Elder Adams, and our 2 investigators who
showed up to watch conference at the church, but it was an amazing experience.
Really the whole day was full of miracles. Elder Adams and I, as well as our
amazing investigators learned so much and felt the spirit.
We
watched the Saturday morning session again (this time in English) at 8 am
Sunday (for personal and companionship study) then we watched priesthood
session at 11, then we watched Saturday afternoon at 2, then we watched the
Sunday morning session live at 6. Overall, 8 hours of conference that day!
Elder Adams and I just finished watching the Sunday afternoon session this
morning at 8 for personal and companionship study.
Even
though we mostly watched conference in French with investigators, the spirit is
the same and I was able to understand most of it. I am so grateful for a modern
day prophet and living apostles. They are inspired men and really receive
revelation from God for us just as prophets and apostles have done in biblical
times. Study their words, but more importantly, put them into practice! I am
thankful for my opportunity to be a missionary. Being a missionary is such a
blessing. My experience on Saturday was just a tiny example of the many
miracles and blessings I have seen during my short time as a missionary.
Enjoy the
week everyone!
Love,
Elder
Davis
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