January 4, 2010

"Happy p-day! Today is such a good day. I get to relax! So this past week has gone by alright. There weren't any huge highlights to get excited about but I just have a good feeling that things are gonna happen. You have to stay optimistic right? Faith opposes doubt and worry. Elder Rondo reminds me of that often, he doesn't let me get too worried about the little things. We can't fear failure, we have to earnestly and cheerfully seek success."

This is a great lesson for all of us, but particularly for Eric, who has a tendency to be pretty hard on himself.

The Dindambe family again was at the forefront of the people the elders are teaching.

"I am so excited for this coming week. We are still working with Elisabeth and Carlos and Freddy. Freddy, the father still hasn't made time for church. He has a really busy schedule but I pray that he will make time this week. Elisabeth really wants to get baptised but Freddy needs to come too. One of the frustrations we have is that we have trouble getting her to church because the father works and takes their car and she has to bring the rest of the family, their 4 kids. So basically she didn't come to church with the kids this week because we couldn't get her there. Which is frustrating. The only way things will work is if we can get the father interested and free so he can drive them to church again. The last time he did that was about a month ago so it has happened before. We have an appointment to see Freddy this week so hopefully he will feel the spirit and make the sacrifice."

In other news:

"This week we also got a great member referral. His name is Robert and he is 22 and is friends with our ward mission leader's great family. He came to church and liked it. We have only taught him once but he seems pretty interested. In our first appointment he asked a lot of questions about how he'd have to live his life as a member of our church so he is obviously considering these things."

And:

"Also news this week. Nikki is probably on an airplane right now back to China. It was really weird to say goodbye to a recent convert. After I thought about it I realized that all of the other recent converts of mine from Sheffield who went home left after I left the area. I hope that they can stay close to the gospel. It will be pretty tough for them. I pray that China will open soon completely to our church.

We share Eric's concern and his prayer. I hope we are all praying for the Chinese government to recognize the Church and allow them to meet openly. This would be a great first step, even if they didn't allow missionaries in their land.

Finally, on a more mundane level:

"Also this past week I made a big purchase. I bought a suit! I decided to spend some of that Christmas money. It was £60 or about $100. It is from a shop called Burton and it is ace. It is a one-button slim fit suit. It is gray with kind of a shiny finish and two vents in the back. I like it. I probably won't wear it much before I come home. Seeing now how many suits I have I can't really justify buying another one but it was at a really reduced price. I haven't bought anything in a while and it was Christmas so yeah."

Ace? What is that? I used that word as a missionary more than 30 years ago., and haven't heard it since. I guess missionary-speak just gets recycled. See you next week.