"Silly Satan..."

Hola mis padres! Como estan?! Como fue sus semanas?!

Oh mi palabras... Que una semana... He aprendido mucho en este semana pasada... Correcion, El Senor me ha ensanado mucho a mi alma y mi mente. Espanol es mas facil ahora por que he sido tratando duro a aprender y progresar en esta idioma. Es deficil en momentos, pero, con Dios ninguna cosa es impossible. He recibido una testimonio de eso.

That's my spanish for this time!

It was an... Interesting week to say the least! I learned that missionary work isn't missionary work if you're not having fun! Now, not like bad fun but just fun fun while doing the work! It's not wasting the Lord's time if you're out doing the work and having a good time. That's the biggest lesson I've EVER learned here on my mission! Time flies when you're having fun and you HAVE to do it on the mission or you'll HATE it and so will your investigators.

We had a rough week. Most of our appointments dropped out. Our investigators moved.... without telling us.... And to top it all off I finished off the week, with the worst cold I've ever had. I understand what Moroni is talking about in Ether when he talks about not being able to receive your witness until after the trial(s) of your faith. I learned that missionary work isn't all smiles and baptisms over here. Funny how it's, missionary WORK, right? Who knew?!

Just sayin', missionary work is as fun as you make it! If you just do work and just knock doors and just teach lessons and just get baptisms, you will be so excited to get home from day one. I learned that if you knock doors with excitement, if you teach with love, trying to make it interesting and you baptize, always understanding what that covenant means and represents, your mission will be the best thing ever.

I came in with blinders on, not letting anything come into my eyes that didn't have to do with sticking exactly to the lessons, exactly to the book. My companion has taught me that you can do that, but no one will want to listen to you. You have to smile and make it enjoyable for you, because if it's enjoyable for you, it's enjoyable for them too!

I learned this when we went on these exchanges and we went to these black kids house right. They were all about my house just shootin around. My companion that i had exchanged with couldn't shoot. So of course, us two white kids challenged them to a game. I was freaking out saying, "Elder, this is NOT in the rule book! We need to teach and move on! We can't just play them. The Spirit can't work through basketball." He laughed and told me to take off my back pack. So I did. I immediately started feeling horribly scared. They were black. I was white. It was in their jeans to play and I was wearing a white shirt and tie.... This was going to end bad. He said "Alright, if we win, we teach you a lesson, if you win we leave, game to eleven." ELEVEN?!?! I said in my head. We're done. 3 on 2, they're mini Jordans and I'm wearing Nunn Bush's.... Well my friends, the power of the Lord IS there! First shot, I dunked. Boy did that feel good! Those kids were freaking out. Apparently they didn't play much basketball. PHEW!!!! The score was 9-10 us when I threw the game winning ally-oop to my companion who smoothly kissed it off the glass. We taught a great lesson and got invited back. Now if we had just asked to teach them they wouldn't have ever let us in or let us talk to them. They still wouldn't know about our church. Because we had fun with them, they hugged us at the end and told us to come back again and play and teach more!!!! What a blessing.

We later, after having more fun doing the work, discovered 4 new investigators that already said firmly and excitingly, that if they found out that this church was true, they would come and be baptized :D What a week.

I know that this is la gran obra de Dios! No one can stop this work from going forth. Satan tries EVERY hour of EVERY day but fails. Silly Satan, souls are Heavenly Father :D I love being called to serve him because he's ALWAYS with me!

Love,

Elder Walker :D