Press On

The title of this email is exactly what I’ve been having to tell myself this last week. I’ve been learning more and more to just keep going and to press on. This isn’t easy.  It's crazy and I’m sure it breaks some people's hearts but being a missionary doesn’t mean we are always perfect.  Haha  It wasn’t until my mission that I realized  all of the behind-the-scenes that goes on. I always thought missionaries would teach people and they would get baptized right away and that everyone’s so open to the Gospel . There’s life lessons to be learned though ...  there’s some days in life that go by so fast and there are other days that feel that they never end. I’m grateful for a mission to learn this and to learn to press on for the Lord and not give up. There have been trials, tough times, rejection, ignorance and extremely hot weather but that’s the "opposition in all things"  that is spoken about in the Book of Mormon in 2 Nephi 2:11.

This is part of life... to figure out how to face and overcome opposition, weather temptations, sickness, loss of job, family problems, loss of loved ones, laziness and so on. When I teach people about this principle I like to simplify it to this, “So what’s cold? How do you know it is cold? Well, you have to first know what hot is to then know cold.  Or you can only know up if you also know down. Same with life here on earth ... we go through opposition EVERYDAY and learn something new. Now take the lesson learned in that opposition and apply it into your daily life and that is how we become better and more Christ like every day."

A cool story that happened on Wednesday was we had a member out with us named Eddie. I felt earlier that we should have stopped by a lady named Anna’s house. We tracted into Anna about 5 months ago and I haven’t seen her for at least 4 and a half months. She kind of was on the back burner because she didn’t seem super interested and would never answer. So, I said were stopping by there and sure enough she was home and answered. We got talking and then she invited us in because this time we had another member with us so we could go in. She had no idea what our church believes and has misconceptions about the church because she’s been raised hearing it.  All of her questions that didn’t make sense to her basically is answered in our scriptures and from modern day revelation. She would be like, "Ohhh that makes sense... I agree... I'm glad I'm not the only one."   It was awesome to have prophets answering her questions. She was having  a super hard day the day before and I told her that God had inspired me today to go by and see her because He cares and loves her and knew we could bring her peace through the Gospel. Her eyes watered up as we bore testimony and I could feel that she knew this Church is different than any other in the world!  Ahhhh.   I just love bringing  glorious joy to those who are down-trodden.

The Church is true!

Help others find truth because it is out here ... there’s no need for darkness anymore!

Thanks for all of the support from everyone!

Love,

Elder T

This is literally someone's front lawn... a little obsessed with the Dallas Cowboys !

 A pic of me eating dinner at the Snyders .... it was my favorite meal, Chicken Alfredo!

 I went on exchanges with Elder Jenson a few days ago and we thought this truck was super big so we took a pic in front of it 

Click on the image below to learn about the life of a Mormon missionary: