It's a door knock life, for me....apparently

I went to Wolverine yesterday for a first time, we got a referral that seemed promising enough to go up there to try. And I thought I was out in the boonies, oh my goodness there is no need for any stop signs in that town. It was dead too, no cars at churches, no one answering any doors, infact I think I only saw snowmobilers going to cheboygan the whole time I was there. It was so red neck people left their fresh shot squirrel on their porch since it was cold enough for refrigeration... we had like 2 people answer their door in over a hour of knocking, all of which had huge crazy dogs that they had to fight to talk to us.

I got my transfer call this week and I will now be the district leader over in Kalamazoo, I will be serving in the Kalamazoo #2 area where they have 2 sets apparently.

In our mission we started as of two weeks ago a competition based on key indicators. I wont even tell you about the mission wide competition because I really only think that is the sprinkles on the top of the cake. The big thing about it is now they post every week the missions key indicators for us to see with our names attached to them. Which is SWEET! I had a zoneleader telling me all about how he got 17 less actives to church in a week, I looked at his key indicators.... 7 is still a lot for one week, but dude come on. I have been able to scope down my friends key indicators and email them with a "p.s. how is your hours of door knocking going" =p, but in that case he was getting over 15 every week, thats my boy! But why I bring this up is I just looked up my new areas key indicators, this last transfer they have had a total of 3 lessons with their door knocking hours averaging 9 per week. the only other key indicator they have is super high referrals but none of which pan out.

This week we had so many time consumers come up. We had to move 3 couches in one day (not all one place our apt, Sr. mish apt, and some members) two of which were hide a beds, one of which we had to carry up and down a stair case. All was too heavy for my companion to lift the other side so E. Wilson took one side up until he got it to the top step and couldn't hold it anymore I had to lift the dang thing over my head to get it over the railing so I could stand it up straight and rotate it into the apartment. 

 

We were then asked to shovel loads of snow for a less active who is really old and then we got the third couch, the second hide-a-bed we carried it out the back door of a dentist office, across the parking lot and into another building. I lost all of my grip strength as we got into the hallway a few feet before the room. So me and their landlord slid it in the room. Psh and I even worked out that morning on my arms because at the zone training they made me feel bad for not, terrible idea.ha ha

I can not believe the spiritual power that has been in our lessons this week, every lesson we had was great and every one could feel it and we got them all to recognize that spirit. But you wouldn't believe how many people called and canceled on us or dropped us this week, if only they all could have had a lesson like that this week. If only. 

 

I was asked to bear my testimony at the end of sacrament meeting yesterday, one of the speakers was terribly sick and couldn't make it so i had the mike for 20 minutes, I don't think I used all that time, but I took the luxury of it. I quickly said my thanks for the branch in like 20 second and then I moved on to the message that was being impressed on my heart the night before and that morning. I bore my testimony on my love for the prophet Moroni and what he said in ch 1 of his book and how he lived his life and taught in those few moments we have record of. 

 

I bore my testimony for my love for the Prophet Joseph Smith and how he reflected that same type of urgency in his last moments of life too, and how they are great examples of magnifying their callings far past what they planned even when they "were done for" and how greatly we have been impacted by them. I then bore testimony of the heroes in my life who have reflected those same desires like Grandpa Crockett and others. I kept breaking in my stature while testifying, totally ignoring any notes I took, there was a lot of people crying, myself included. E. Miles cried all the way until sunday school ha ha.

My biggest focus this week was to teach the Wilson's all of the important things that I thought sr. Missionaries should know, giving them the unwritten rules of the mission that are now written that they would have never received, teaching them about the gospel of Jesus Christ, records, members in the branch, and anything else that they recognized they did not know about or learn in the MTC. 

 

I only got to experience one lesson with them sadly, those lessons with Sr. Missionaries are my favorite. I was hoping to see their teaching skills so I might have the opportunity to strengthen those too but they will be fine. You don't know what I would give to have the opportunity to serve a mission as a family, to have that opportunity would be incredible. But aligning everything for that in this life would be really hard.

One of the greatest, most special things to me this week was to have seen the peace that the gospel brings!  I never have been able to see that in any area, I don't know if I will ever have that opportunity on a mission again. But it was the sweetest thing to me to sit with our recent convert J and to hear about what has happened since he received the gift of the Holy Ghost, how his whole perspective of life changed, how it changed him spiritually, mentally, and emotionally and how he bursts into tears at the slightest touch of the spirit, how a prompting makes the blood shoot through his body and gives him great energy to act, How he has been able to connect the dots of things mentally that he never would have done before to the point where we started the lesson in Sunday School and after we taught a little of the principal he started getting super excited. He started telling us what that means and connecting it to every other principal that he knew of, making analogies, and teaching us about the pre-earth life. (he talked the most ha ha) It was impressive to see how quickly he zipped through the scriptures and the things he learned from them since his baptism.

This wasn't all We also met with S and when we were teaching her kids about the gift of the holy ghost she started telling them about how much it has changed her. She used to get so irritated with her adult daughter she would yell and fight and walk away because she couldn't even stand to talk to her any more. But after her baptism when her daughter would try to confront her, she would be able to settle it and go on with life like nothing happened feeling peaceful. 

 

Its hard to imagine my life without the Gift of the Holy Ghost in the ways that they have talked about it helping them. But it's so exhilarating to them because they were at rock bottom low in life,  having suicidal thoughts and then having the gospel introduced to them by a friend, by door knocking; and all of that changed dramatically. Just like how in PMG it talks about darkening the Great apostasy to make the Restoration so much more brilliant, that's how it was in their lives. Now being able to have that shinning influence from the spirit continually.

I can hardly imagine that and the change that came just because I have grown so accustomed to that influence. It has brought a new meaning when the scriptures talk about repenting and being baptized that you might be Sanctified by the Holy Ghost.

I have to get to mount pleasant

Bye I love you have a good day

Don't get shot!

   

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- Elder Truman Rex Crockett