Date
April 27, 2015
Area
Zadar, Croatia
Companion
Elder Odiorne, Elder Spargue,
Week - 82 - Traveling, Working, & Planting a Garden.
Hey Everyone!!
You want to know something that I just remembered this week?? Im gonig to tell you ha, anyways our senior couple after church was talking with us and asked about skyping home on Mothers Day... and I was like what!?? Ya that is coming up, but it feels like just a month ago I talked to you all on Christmas. Thats so weird.
This week! Its was pretty good, half of it I got to spend in Zagreb so that was really fun. When I got to zagreb i got all settled in and asked the elder what we were doing and he was like.. um well we dont really have any investigators right now. Then I said alright well lets go find some! So that is really all we did, and its been warming up so I was in a short sleeve shirt and I got a good little tan started ha. It was fun being out on the streets, dirt paths, and parks for pretty much all of the two days I was there. Oh ya one cool thing too that happened. So in one of my last areas, there was a member that I am really good friends with and was preparing for a mini mission. I had been helping him and he left a week after I had left that area. Well when I was in Zagreb he happened to be finishing that day and I got to see him for a little. It was really cool, definitely a surprise that I loved a ton!
This week was also really busy, well when I had come back from zagreb. It seemed like there were lots of things to do and no time at all to do them all. But after being on a mission for a while I just don't even like the excuse, I didn't have time.. so I try not to use it too haha. But one of the first things we did was plant a garden!! I can't remember if I had mentioned that before but for the morning we planted everthing! I got the best core work out in a while digging little trenchs and doing all the harder work ha. But it was so fun, the senior couple got some pictures and I want to send pictures so if she sends them to me today then I will forward them to yall. It was nice to see us work it all out and now when it is done we get to donated food to members who need and then the rest will go to food banks or orphanages around town. Hopefully it all works out good in the next couple of months and hopefully I get to see how it tatse while im here ;)
Well this email is gong to be pretty short, Im running out of things to say unfortunately. The last thing that Ill tell is about and investigator of ours. We were pretty much teaching the first lesson and then he just takes over in a good way and starts teaching us. He really is awesome though. He said that people here are blessed, they dont recognize it and then when something bad happens that they just curse god and go on with life. Then I was like what do you explain it, and he gave an example that is just so funny I have to share it. He said, think of it like this.. a young boy wants ice cream and he only has 3 kuna (thats the money we use) but it costs 8. Then he is sad and prays that he can somehow get and icecream and he is walking along and finds a 5 kuna coin and is so happy! He goes and gets his icecream, takes a bite or two and then a car comes by really close and drops it in the sand. He gets mad and then curses god and says, why would you take my icecream away from me. But the kid just completely forgets that God was the one to give him the 5 kuna to buy it in the first place. It was a great little story and he went on to say that in his life he is happy with the little answers he gets in life and that he doesn't need to see God to know that he exists. We really want him to progress because he can and will be ready to!
Well the last thing that happened was church! All the missionaries spoke because as a branch we had read the book of mormon and we were sumarizing it all. My part was Alma 17 to 55 and there are too many good things in there so I just focused a lot on chapters 32 to 34. I can just finish up sharing some of my favorite things from them though. Oh ya one of the hardest things to was that we had to do it all in 5 minutes and i was closer to the end and of course some of them took more than 5 minutes so I got cut down to like 3 and I just didn't even read any of my talk and read some scriptures and testifed. But of course it talks about faith a lot in these chapters, it explains what it is and how we can obtain this great thing. But one of the questions that I really like was how much faith do we need to reap the blessings of the atonement? And chapter 34 nails it.. It says faith unto repentance! In the croatian book of mormon something even cooler that I hadn't notice before was that directly translated it says faith unto conversion. And that really hit me, I loved that! We aren't recquired to have faith to move mountains, the split the sea or to heal the lame. All we have to do is have faith to repent or be converted! That is something WE ALL can do, I know that! Also on the subject about the atonement and how it is infinte.. I never really ever thought about that and how infinite it really it. It is infinite in the amount he suffered. Infinite in time. Infinite in the was that it covers everyone everywhere and on everyplanet. The grace that comes from the atonement is extended to everyone. Its so amazing and I really and thankful for it! I love you all, and thanks for all the help you give!
Talk to you next week and let me know about the skype thing :)
Love
Elder Lowis