Week 97

Thanks for all the birthday wishes!

This week was awesome and filled with good stuff. Tuesday Elder Durbin and West knocked on our door about 7 am with a little cake in their hands singing Happy Birthday. Finished a killer exercise by eating 1/4 of a cake haha. Following Latin American tradition, I got the cake shoved in my face haha. Fun morning. The Elders here in Sensunte are awesome. Then Tuesday night my comp Elder Tineo invited me to pupusas de piña. May be the greatest thing since sliced bread. 

Thursday we had a super awesome multi-zone conference. Waking up at 4 to get there on time was well worth the effort. The mission as a whole has progressed so much over the past 2 years and now the Lord is asking even more of us. I wish I could stay another 6 months just to see the progression of the work (in case you didn't know, getting permission to extend your mission is very difficult), but I'm just going to work with all in the time I have. 

We have been going through some trials in our area. I don't know if I told you guys that we opened up a new town about 30 minutes down the road from Sensunte. We have been working there so much and have a big investigator pool, but it is tough to get them to progress. As far as anyone here knows, missionaries have never dedicated much time to try and work there, and the other churches have strong roots and aren't afraid to down talk 2 white shirt foreigners haha. 

At church on Sunday we both felt pretty down. We had done everything we could think of to get people to go, had put into practice various new ideas, but didn't get even close to the turnout we were expecting. Throughout sacrament meeting we were praying and seeking guidance and forgiveness if we hadn't done something we could have done to help more people. As I prayed the scripture in Ether 12:27 came to mind about how God gives us debilities to make us humble and search his help. Later that night I read this quote from Presidente Monson,

"We all have treasured memories of certain days in our lives- days when all seemed to go well for us, when much was accomplished... It's not difficult to be happy on such perfect days. Our mortal life, however, was never meant to be easy or consistently pleasant. Our Heavenly Father who gives us so much to delight in, also knows that we learn and grow and become refined through hard challenges, heartbreaking sorrows, and difficult choices. These and all trials present us with the real test of our ability to endure"

The more I think and look back on things, the more I realize that the times I have learned most in my mission, the times when I feel like I have been pushed to become the best missionary I can be is when things weren't working out great. 

My comp and I have new goals and plans and are super excited to push forward this next week. Whatever it takes we are going to push the work forward. So excited for next week!!

Hope everything is going well with you guys! 

Love Elder Davis