Week 50 - Roasted Pigs and Dads

Hello All!

    I hope you've all had a great week!  I especially hope all the great Dads out there had a wonderful Father's Day.  It's been a great week here as usual, though it's been a little strange.  When your companion is going home in less than a week, things tend to be different. ;)  It's been great, though, and Elder Asay is doing a great job!  We had a good week teaching and working and roasting pigs. (Just one, actually.)

    Though it was a good week, it definitely had its ups and downs.  I'm sorry to say that we probably won't be meeting with the H family any more.  We had an appointment with them on Tuesday that fell through, so we were texting Nikola, the mother, to try to set up another appointment.  She texted us back, and let us know that she was no longer interested in investigating the church.  Apparently, she's looking for a more new-age rock and roll type church.  I'll be honest, it was pretty devastating getting that, especially when the members of the ward really couldn't have done anything more to fellowship them and welcome them into the ward.  We'll just hope that their hearts continue to be softened and that someday they realize where they're supposed to be.

    We met with Drey this week, which was good.  Being a 14 year old boy, he often misses appointments, but he's been going to youth activities and having a great time.  Hopefully he'll progress into having a stronger testimony of the gospel which will lead to more action!

    This week, we also started to teach a former investigator named Bruce.  He's a cool guy with a crazy past.  He has a sister who is a member of the church down in Utah.  She calls him every night just to make sure he's doing alright.  He has some great family and friends in the church, and he'll hopefully be able to see the many blessings the gospel can bring into his life.

   

I wanted to share a scripture with you that I came across this morning.  It's in Joshua 3:5, when Joshua is talking to the Israelites.  He says, "Sanctify yourselves: for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you."  For some reason, that scripture really hit me.  The foot note for sanctify says "make holy".  I looked up "Holiness" in the Bible Dictionary, and something it says is, "things or places were holy that were set apart for a sacred purpose; the opposite of holy is therefore common or profane."  We are a peculiar people.  We are not normal.  We are set apart by what we know and, hopefully, what we do.  The more we realize that, and the more we try to sanctify ourselves, the more miracles the Lord will be able to perform.  I hope I can live up to that counsel.

    I hope you all have a wonderful week.  Happy late Father's Day, Dad!  Thank you for your incredible example and for all you do.  Be good.  Have fun!

I love you all!

Elder Hafen