Nubs

Hello there world,

How are ya'll? I'm doing great. Being a missionary is a pretty slick life, that's for sure. Dad's email to me reminded me of something I read one day as a cashier at the water park in one of John Bytheway's books. Basically he said that you are going to have companions you have nothing at all in common with but if you look at the big picture, you have one thing more important than anything, that you both have in common. That is that you have both been called to be servants of the Lord Jesus Christ in the same place. That's a pretty big similarity and that's enough to keep me satisfied for sure. One of our differences however, is that Elder Jones has 9 fingers and 1 nub. He pokes me with the nub sometimes and it's really weird. He thinks it's super funny but it's not that funny to me. Oh well, we're both missionaries here doing the same work and that is all that matters.

As for some of your questions. Those pictures of Troy sum up his personality. He's a pretty funny guy and we would probably be good friends outside of the mission. I'll always appreciate that dude. As for my best spiritual and scriptural experiences for the week, I'll get to that a little later on. It was pretty cool though. I do have one question though. How is bryce perez doing on the basketball team? Is he playing at all or what's going on there?

Anyway, this week was pretty good lessons wise. We taught more people than I've taught my entire mission so far so that was pretty cool. One thing we struggle with is finding new investigators though. That's something that we need to work on a lot this week because we basically have 3 investigators (none of which are progressing at the moment) and a ton of less-active work. We have 5 referrals from Shariy that live way out the boondocks by her that we need to contact. It's just kinda hard to contact them since she lives way the heck out there but we'll get'r done. Next time we go out there we are hoping to contact them and hopefully we will see some fruits come forth from them. We also have some pretty decent potential investigators that we have appointments with this week so that should be sweet. President Miller kind of threw down on the entire mission this week and basically told us that we are all doing a bad job of finding new and more people to teach. We're gonna make him proud this week. This week we also did a ton of tracting and everybody basically hated us except for one door. Maybe that guy will come around someday. We'll see. We also met this guy who lives in the home of where a less-active guy used to live. He had a CR450 fourstroke dirtbike outside so we went and talked to him about dirtbikes and stuff and he apparently has a mormon background but is not a member. We will hopefully get to meet with that guy this week too. We're working hard for sure so the blessings and miracles will hopefully come soon because I think I'm ready to see one now at this point.

This week we met with our new investigator Tina again we taught her about the Plan of Salvation. She loved it and said it made more sense to her than any other explanation about life that she'd ever been given. That just so happens to be because the Plan of Salvation is true. We told her that and she knows it's true too. Tina is solid all except for the fact that she hasn't come to church yet. She said she would make it there and we arranged for a ride to pick her up and everything but she didn't show up so that was a major bummer. It's all good though. We will get her to come next week and she will love it and all will be well. She has a really sweet spirit and she needs the gospel in her life for her and her son. She will see the blessings of the gospel and be baptized also and it will be boss to the max.

This week we threw down on marriage with Shariy and Geno again but this time it was more bold and blunt than we've ever thrown down on them. They knew it was coming so the prepared themselves. Basically, we told them that baptism is a commandment from God and it is something that Shariy really wants in her life. We told her that she is limiting the blessings she can have in her life by not being married and then baptized. She told us she knows all of that and she knows it's all true. Geno said he even knows that they need to be married so then we asked them what the holdup is. Basicallly, the conclusion is that Geno is the holdup here, and he is afraid of being married again because his last marriage ended so horribly. We told them that this marriage won't go wrong because they already love each other and this marriage would be being married in obedience to one of God's most important commandments. They both said that they know that is true as well. We told them that they need to pray about marriage and whether it is the right thing to do together and they said they would do that. A couple days later, we went back and only Shariy was there. Her words really disappointed me and broke my heart. She said "Elders, I don't think this marriage is going to happen for a very long time." I was so disappointed. After she said that I kind of felt lost and didn't really know what to say so I just didn't say anything for a while. Then it came to me. I remembered a scripture mastery in 2 Nephi 32:8-9 where it says that the evil spirit teaches us not to pray but we MUST pray always. We asked Shariy if they had prayed about marriage and they didn't so then we shared that scripture with her. Shariy looked at us and said "that scripture was for me wasn't it?" Of course, we told her that it was and that it was something that she needed to hear. We recommitted her to pray about that concern with Geno and told her that a miracle can happen and that his heart can be softened enough to except marriage. It's gonna happen. Maybe it won't when I am here but I am confident in saying that I know they will eventually be married and they will have the blessings of the gospel in their life. I am also confident in saying that I know I was sent here specifically to Rio Rancho New Mexico for Shariy and Geno. All I want is for them to embrace the gospel in their lives and someday they will.

I also know that this work is true. The Book of Mormon is the word of God. It is how God speaks to us, it answers our questions, and it comforts us in times in our lives when we need comfort. Joseph Smith is and was the Prophet of the Restoration. Thomas S. Monson is the prophet today. I know that God lives and that He is our loving Father in Heaven. I know that I am exactly where I need to be sharing this message to all who will hear it. I love it. I remember one day back in the ML singles ward Elder Zubek got up and bore his testimony and said something to the effect of "according to the world I'm not doing anything fun or worthwhile but I am the happiest person I've ever been and I'm having the most fun I've ever had in my life." I second that. This has been the greatest thing that I have ever been a part of and I haven't been at it for very long. My life is solid right now.

Thanks to all ya'll for everything. Thank you mommy for the pictures too! I appreciate it! I love all ya'll. Thanks for the prayers that have been coming my way!

Peace and Love,
Elder Black