Much Ado About Nothing

早安!

A word I would use to describe this week is uneventful. Nothing spectacular really happened, but I'll share some highlights.

We started the week having a lesson with Sylvia. We are really trying to help her progress, but have come to a standstill. The next point for her is baptism, and after being taught by missionaries for almost a year, she still isn't ready to commit because of fears of what her father will do and think as a result. Granted we don't know the whole situation, but it is frustrating at times when a 50 year old woman doesn't feel confident enough to make her own decisions. We taught her a lesson on the Tree of Life and her personal journey down the Gospel path to the Tree, and how we need to constantly be taking steps forward in order for this gospel to really have effect in our lives. We won't be meeting with her as much as we have been, so we will hopefully be able to find more people who are ready to progress.
Chad came to church yesterday, but we were unable to meet with him. We planned to go to a YSA fireside on church history with him, but he didn't show up, which was a bummer... He's pretty quiet, but we've been able to get him to open up about some of his concerns as we've been talking to him about his Book of Mormon reading and his questions. He's doing well.

Now how about some positives of the week? Wednesday, Elder Ratliff and I attended Mission Leadership Council, where we got to talk a lot about policies and the general status of the mission. I love seeing missionary friends at these meetings, and knowing that they are all working so hard and caring so much makes me feel like Alma reuniting with the Sons of Mosiah. That was fun, as were the changes in policy to our mission.
I also got to go on exchanges with Elder Saungsevarng, a new missionary who is a convert from Laos. He is one of the most sincere and genuine people I've ever met, and so happy to be a missionary. We had a good day of raking leaves and knocking doors together. Loved his positivity. My favorite moment of the week was a miracle that happened on that exchange. We got a call from one of our less active members asking us to come over and give the grandmother of the family a blessing. We were able to do so, and Bro Tupou talked to us afterwards. He said that us coming over was the first time he's felt the Spirit in his home in a long time, and said that the night marked the beginning of a change for him. That experience spoke to me about the true power of the Spirit and the incredible influence it has on people. It brings things to our remembrance, whether that be knowledge and testimony, or not we previously felt. I was grateful to be apart of that evening for the Tupou family. They are now one of the families we and our awesome Ward Mission Leader, Bro. Aiello (who else can say that you have a Ward Mission Leader who invites you over to a dinner of leftovers and then out of the blue decides to grill us up some T-bone steaks!), will keep an eye on. 

Good things are happening. The Zone is doing well, but it's about time that we really try to keep positive and have faith. I learned a lot about having faith to overcome doubt while preparing for a talk that I gave in Sacrament Meeting yesterday. Even when doubts arise, we need to rely on the testimony we already have and remember the things we already know. It's like the story of the man with the son possessed with a devil; if we do indeed believe, Christ will help us overcome our "unbelief," or the areas where we lack faith. I found the whole experience really insightful.

We are doing well here, and looking forward to fall. As always, thank you for all the support and love. It never goes unnoticed.

Love to you all!

Elder Butters/包长老