Just keep walking, walking walking...

January 13, 2014

Dearest Darlingest readers of this, my mission blog:

First and most importantly…thank you to all you kind people out there who made my birthday so amazingly wonderful!!  What an incredible surprise to open my inbox and find so many of you there, wishing me wonderful things and making this mission birthday such a happy memory.  What a most unexpected happiness.  Thank you, thank you!

You are looking fantastic today. No, really, is that a new shirt? New haircut? Oh come on, it must be SOMETHING.

No? Hmm. Well I suppose you've just always been this amazing.

Well. This week we tried something new to find investigators. It is something our mission president has mentioned in zone conferences a few times, but has been hard for us to do because our area is so big.

Walk.

and walk and walk and walk and walk.

and while we're walking, find new people and talk.

and talk. and talk and talk and talk and talk.

But try not to gawk at the squawking hawks wearing socks. (Sorry, sometimes my rhyming gets a little bit out of control. AWK...ward)

After walking our entire area

But really, we probably put about 7 miles on our shoes this week looking for new investigators as we have walked from appointment to appointment. The overall response? rejection. Actually, that was the ONLY response. Nicely, of course, but rejection nonetheless. Mid-week I began questioning our decision to start walking to and from appointments. It seemed like more than anything it was wasting time, and we were getting fewer lessons than usual. But, as always, the Lord showed us that obedience to the counsel of an inspired mission president is never a waste of time.

NO, we didn't have any success talking to people on the street, but on Friday, the English-speaking sisters gave us a call. They said that a man named "Mark" had contacted them and set up a lesson. They said that he had given our names, and that we had met him. Well. Rewind to Christmas day. We decided to walk from one appointment to another (since it was a really slow day) and we met this man named “Mark”. We talked to him for about and hour, and he knew a lot about the church. His friend had stopped doing drugs and completely turned his life around to join our church, and Marco had grown up around it his whole life. He basically told us the story of Joseph Smith, but when we asked him if we could set up a time to come talk to him, he said that he wasn't interested, and that he already knew a lot about our church. Nevertheless, we gave him the missionary number and told him that he could always call if he changed his mind.

Then. THIS week, he decided to call the sisters, who in turn called us right in the middle of the week when we were wondering if street contacting was really doing any good.

This is the way of the Lord. He doesn't always answer you in the ways that you expect, but he is ALWAYS mindful of you. This week, I challenge you to write a letter to someone who wouldn't expect it, in an effort to lift, inspire, appreciate and encourage them. If you pray before you write it to know what to say, I TRULY BELIEVE that you will be an answer to their prayers, and have a great impact on them.

Thanks again for all the birthday love!!!!

-Hermana Thomas

Our ward mission leader's birthday with tres leche cake!