31st

Hey everyone! 

This past week has gone by so fast, I can't believe it's already Monday again.  Every Monday I think about how fast this time is going.  It's insane.  That's cool that Whitney is having a good time!  That's also cool that Tayor met Jessika Jenson!  Send me the picture!  What things have y'all been up to?  I can't believe how much the branch has changed!  I'm not even going to recognize it when I come back. 

I think I'm going to keep this relatively short.  Mainly because the keyboard I'm using is broken and it's driving me mad. 

Last week after emailing we had district p-day.  We all went bowling, I did pretty well for not having played in so long.  I bowled a 119 then a 122.  I've never been good at bowling anyways though.  We had fun.  We went to dinner at the Maloney's again.  We were 20 minutes late though because outside of their house we GQed this man who seemed pretty interested.  He had some anxiety problems though and wouldn't give us his details. 

Tuesday we had Zone Meeting, on the way there it was pouring down rain but then it turned to snow!  It snowed for a bit but by the time we were done with the meeting it had stopped.  President Rasmussen came to talk to us about effective study so that was good.  The mission is so big now that he doesn't have much time to meet with us too often so it's always good to have some time with him.  There are over 260 missionaries in the mission!

Wednesday we planned an all day finding day.  It was extremely windy though!  We left the flat and talked to as many people as possible but there weren't too many people out, and tracting just isn't too effective.  You can't talk to as many people by knocking on doors and when you do talk to them they're kind of aggrevated that you bothered them.  I much prefer talking to people on the streets.  That night we helped Sister Wright move in to her house but weren't able to do nearly all of it. 

Thursday we were supposed to teach Salin and do some finding but I had woken up Wednesday night very sick and was sick most of Thursday, unfortunately we weren't able to do much that day.  I think both of us have paid our sickness price for the rest of our missions though!  Hopefully. :P

Friday was a good day, we had our 'Follow-up Trainers Meeting' at the office.  All of the trainers and new missionaries go and recieve training from President.  So I got to see him twice this week.  Really it's just him making sure we haven't corrupted the new missionaries I'm sure.  (:   I got Arabic name tags that day, so that's cool!  Hopefully I'll get to put them to use soon.  We're actually going to our highest Arab population area later today, we'll see.  I've been studying the language during Elder Tupous language study time and am actually doing quite well!  We started a fast for Salin's test and some other things after the meeting, and then we went to teach Salin!  We had a good lesson about Temples,  hopefully he'll be baptized soon.  The only problem is that he works on Sundays a lot and hasn't been able to come to church recently. 

Saturday we did our weekly planning, then went to Sister Wrights to finally finish the projects we were working on!  We had our usual Saturday dinner with the Watson family, and taught them the restoration.  They are a great family.

Sunday, we had a great time at church.  Elder Morris (the Morris' are the senior couple that work in the office and take care of finances and paperwork) taught the priesthood lesson, and did a great job.  I think he was a teacher before.  He's a very powerful teacher.  Then we had gospel principles and Sacrament meeting after . We were given a powerful talk on scripture study.  Then some people bore their testimonies because someone from the high counsel didn't show up.  We came back and had dinner, and studied. 

This week has been a pretty good one, the work is still far too slow and it's really been killing me that we haven't been able to find new investigators and that we haven't had too many lessons but I am confident that the work will pick up.  I just feel like I'm doing so much and am having little success.  I'm not letting it slow me down though, that's just reason to work harder.  <-- could you have imagined me saying that before my mission?? 

I remember in 10th grade I wasn't having the best year and people always told me that life is what we make it.  You'll enjoy it, if you say you're going to enjoy it.  One things that's powerful to me is that in the story of Nephi, Nephi and his brothers are walking through the wilderness and their wives are having kids in the wilderness, they are eating raw meat, and just having the worst time.  They were going through all of this for 8 years.  But in 1 Nephi 17:2 they say 'and so great were the blessings of the Lord upon us..'  What a good example at having a positive attitude in a rough situation.  Similarly in Alma when talking about the many years of war, in chapter 62 verse 41 it says '...exceedingly great length of the war between the Nephites and the Lamanites many had become hardened, because of the exceedingly great length of the war; and many were softened because of their afflictions, insomuch that they did humble themselves before God'

The Nephite and the Lamanite people had the same struggles, same problems but some of them chose to react in different ways.  Some were hardened, some were softened.  I guess it's just good to know of a situation in the Book of Mormon where they had to choose for themselves how they were going to react to the situation they were in.

I hope you are all doing great. 

Love,
Elder Pogue