Hey everyone!
Back again, and I want to apologize to start off if this email is not the most thrilling or exciting of the bunch. Lots of work and whatnot has been going on here in Morris, but not really anything super noteworthy, I'm not sure you want to hear about the doors that we knocked or all the contact attempts made with those that we are teaching, but we will see how this goes.
So this week we had interviews with our mission president, so we got to trip on down about 2 and a half hours to meet up for that. We stayed in the zone leaders apartments along with another set of Elders, the best part of that was for our exercise in the morning we went to a nearby basketball court and played some dunk ball, so what a better way to start a day of missionary work then just throwing down on your fellow missionaries in some basketball. Interviews went well, they are always good to just talk with the mission president. They aren't always that crazy, but its always nice. He updated me on my last trainee Elder Hulse and told me how he is doing, It sounds like he is just killing it still and might be training this next transfer, so he is following in my footsteps with the 4th transfer train. Speaking of training, as of right now the President thinks that we will probably be training a new person here in Morris as well, it can still be changed, got lots of time until transfers, but hey round 4 training, but maybe in a trio, that would be an adventure.
The rest of the week really was just a grind of work, the next few interesting things both come from Sunday yesterday. So church we had 15 people, so an all time highest attendance for our branch so far, so that's super awesome. It is hard starting out and getting it going, but we are hoping to build the momentum and just get this little branch just to blossom. And I bet it would surprise you that we had to give a lesson as well at church. It has just come to the point that we both come with a lesson and a talk prepared for the branch each Sunday just in case for when we get asked every week. But it is a blast, maybe for my homecoming talk I'll just compile a bunch of my Morris talks for you all haha.
One more cool little experience, so while we were in St Cloud for our interviews, there was a fair going on, and shout out to my aunt Missy and my Mom, for getting me in contact with a less active member from Ecuador that is here and was running a booth at the fair. We stopped by and talked to him for a good 25 minutes and just where he is standing with God and just got to know him a bunch. He now has the address of the church and we are working with him in letting the missionaries visit him. The world is such a small place, the connections and miracles are amazing if we open our eyes.
Then Sunday evening was quite the trip, so we were up in an area north of Alexandria working with some members from the ward there for the evening, and it was a pretty pressing day. The first family, one of the daughters, shes older, not like a young daughter, just feels like she is the victim in life. She feels like God doesn't love her, that he lies to her and shes got nothing going for her... The next member we talked with, she ended up going and telling us the kinds of addictions that really should be discussed with the bishop rather than the full time missionaries. So it was kind of a trip of an evening but lets talk about it for a little bit. First off, we have some powerful knowledge as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and that is that we come from a divine heritage. Not only were we blessed to have some guardians and earthly parents to love and care for us on this earth. but we have spiritual parents who love us with a love more than we can comprehend. These heavenly parents that we have could not stop loving us, no matter what happens in our lives, no matter what we do, no matter what trials we have, Our Father and brother Jesus Christ love us so much and will never stop. So we need to put our trials, and offences behind us and move forward with faith and the knowledge that each one of us is a child of God. And no matter what each one of you do, don't let whatever anyone says to you, or about you, affect your relationship and your spirituality. Way too many times have I as a missionary had to talk to people that have left the church because this or that was said to them by an imperfect human. And this may come as a shock, but no one on earth is perfect, we are a bunch of imperfect people in a perfect church, its up to us to keep moving forward, the second we let what someone said, affect what we do or how we act, that is Satan winning in getting between us and God. So stay strong, love God, and never forget of His PERFECT love for you!
Love you all!
Elder Pickering
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