Growing in the mission

Dear Family and friends,

This week has been a week of what felt like a lot of work and not much pay off. We went out of our way to meet many new people, but were sad to find many unwilling to listen and unwilling to change. My view of missionary work has shifted a little bit in these past few months. At first I thought that the mission was just going and serving others, helping them with their problems and teaching them about Heavenly Father and the Plan of Salvation, but it is much more than that. Our main purpose is to help people to have faith and repent of their sins. There are many people who don't know how to repent, so we are able to teach them how. 

It feels so good when we find someone who wants to repent. For us, this week, that was one of our contacts. We had contacted him a while ago, and a member of the church told us that he wanted us to visit him as well, so we went like 3 times and he wasn't there. We were about to give up, but we prayed to encounter him and ended up teaching him how to repent. He opened up to us and told us that the lady that he is living with is just his girlfriend, and that he is technically still married with his ex wife and that he feels bad for that. We taught him that he needs to repent to feel better and he told us that that is something that he wants to do.
We teach 2 other families with a similar situation. In Honduras it is very hard to get married, and even harder to get divorced! So people just do what they want regardless of their status in the eyes of the law. 

We had a baptism scheduled for this Saturday, but when we went to swing by the houses of our investigators to bring them to church, each of them had a different excuse for why they couldn't go, even though they had told us the day before that we should swing by. I wasn't too surprised, as this has happened more than once, but I felt bad for Elder Dipko because he looked a little heart broken. I told him that we were going to learn a lot of patience here with these people haha.

We were happy to find out that one of our buddies that goes on visits with us will put his mission papers in soon! It made me think of Marshy, I am so proud of you Marshy!! I hope you get to come to San Pedro Sula!!! 

As far as the ward goes, I just had to laugh a little. Those who teach classes, with the exception of our  new convert, don't

prepare their classes and end up talking about opinions instead of the truth, or doctrine. The topic was the restoration, and the class ended up talking about a bunch of random stuff. 

Either way, I know that this church is true. I have felt the spirit testify to me many times that the work that we are doing is the work of the Lord, and that He puts us where we need to be to help His children. Have a great week everyone, I love you!!

Love

Elder Dowell