Mission / Wednesday Aug 31

Dear Everyone,

I've come to realize that God has a way of blessing you when you least expect it. This past week has felt so long and difficult, so gruelling, that we thought that we weren't doing our part, or that we weren't going to meet our goals. We both got sick last week, and both had some disappointments, some discouragement and hardship. Yet, looking back on it, we were blessed in amazing ways. For example, this past week our zone didn't quite meet where we needed to be to finish the month of august. Then yesterday, Elder Lemke and I had one of the most quality days that we have ever had. We had several great appointments, with many miracles and investigators that seem very real. I'll relate to you one of those stories: Monday night we were doing our nightly planning for tuesday, and needed to pray to find a street to knock. We had planned on monday to knock a specific street, but hadn't had the time to do it. I couldn't get that street out of my head that night as I prayed, and as I looked up from my prayer, there was a certain block on the map across the room that seemed to stick out above the rest. I crossed the room to look at it and, yup sure enough, it was 57th and Albany, the same street that had been in my head. I still doubted, but told Elder Lemke that we needed to knock it. So yesterday we did so. The second door that we knocked, a woman answered the door. Elder Lemke looked kind of confused and said, "Hola buenas tardes Emma, como le ha ido? En verdad, solo estabamos tocando su calle, ni me acorde que vivia aqui. Usted nos permitiria pasar y hablarle?" "Hi good afternoon Emma, how have you been? Honestly, we were just knocking your street, I had forgotten that you lived here. However, would you allow us to come in and talk to you?" Emma is the friend of a recent convert who Elder Lemke baptized in another area. He had only ever met her in that member's home (Hermana Zamora). Emma just returned from an extended stay in Mexico, after the death of her daughter. This was the opportune moment to talk to her about the Plan of Salvation and to help her come to the Gospel. After that, she told us to go to another house, and then to another house and another. We had a member with us, Josue Puente (15). He asked us, "Elders, weren't we going to just knock random doors?" I said, "Yeah, that's what we're doing." He responded with a confused look on his face, "This doesn't seem very random to me." Elder Lemke smiled and said, "Gregory (our nicname for him), that's called being guided by God as to where you should go. It will happen occasionally on your mission." It was so cool! It was like every new investigator we found was super legit.

One of the difficulties we had this week was Ivonne. She is still very interested, and always feels the Spirit when she comes to our lessons. However, she left yesterday to finish up High School in Ecuador. We went by on monday to say goodbye, and we got her information to stay in contact and send the missionaries in Quito to talk to her. I was super disappointed to find out that she was going, because I felt really strongly that she could be baptized, and I would love to be a part of it. She and her whole family very quickly became good friends to me, so it sucks that she left.

Another disappointment was our investigator Miguel. Come to find out his interest in the Gospel wasn't as complete as we thought it was and we ended up having to drop him. He wants drinking help, but when we started talking gospel and baptism he started dodging calls and pretending he wasn't home.

We've decided that people in Chicago are very bogus by nature. Few and far between are the Elect of God. However, we have not lost hope, because we know that the Lord and His Angels are preparing people over all the earth and that He will direct us to those He has prepared as long as we demonstrate our faith in Him, diligence, and obedience. I'm very glad for the many blessings that I have seen as a missionary and the many changes that the Lord has made in me and my life.

I love you all, and I love this work. I'm very glad for the many sacrifices and prayers that have been made on my behalf and on behalf of the missionaries in the world. You guys are the Best!!

Love,

Elder J.