So President Tanner gave me a call on Saturday morning and told me the news. He received your email but wasn't able to read it until Saturday morning because we had zone conference for all of eastern Cebu on Friday. I'm pretty grateful that President waited until Saturday to read that and tell me because at zone conference they also gave us flu shots. I hate shots. Sister Tanner gave me my shot and laughed pretty hard at me because I can't take a shot like a man for the life of me. If those two things had both been told to me on the same day, the death of a loved one AND getting a shot would have made July 17th, 2015 the worst day of my mission right there. Haha
But on Saturday I did my personal study and received a call from President Tanner, so naturally I thought "Oh shoot. What did I do". We talked for all of maybe 2 minutes. Then right after I hung up the phone I was sad and was sad for a little bit, then turned straight to the scriptures. I read all of the Plan of Salvation chapters I could think of. Then I turned to True to the Faith and read Plan of Salvation. After that I turned to Preach my Gospel. I made it through my personal study with minimal tears and then we started our companionship study through a song like normal. I chose hymn 142 "Sweet Hour of Prayer" I made it through the first verse just fine. But when the second verse came around I kind of lost it. Once I sang "Thy wings doth my petitions bare" (Of course I'm paraphrasing because I'm in an internet cafe which weirdly has no LDS hymn books.) and just the whole second verse hit me right in my spirit. Then I recomposed myself and since I chose the hymn, I got to pray. I started my prayer and that's when I really lost it. I truly just pleaded with Heavenly Father for comfort for you guys, comfort for me, strength to get out and work, answers to our investigators questions, and the gift of tongues for Elder Sapla and me. I'm gonna tell you right now that that was probably the best thing I could've done. I truly have never felt as close to our Father outside of the temple than when I just cried and poured out my soul to him. I truly received so much comfort from Heavenly Father and I'm so grateful that the Almighty, All powerful God of our souls cares about us enough to just listen to our problems and then talks back to us. I'm so grateful that we are important enough to him that he made a whole plan for us to learn of him and to become like him. I'm even more grateful that our Savior was perfectly obedient to his role in that plan. That through His obedience He overcame all so that we might as well if we follow his will for us. I'm so grateful for the knowledge of a Redeemer through whom the bands of death that bound all the sons of Adam were broken and we will all be brought back to the presence of our Father and our Savior. I'm grateful that He took upon himself death that we might in turn live. I'm grateful for the life that Grandma Alice lived. I'm so blessed that I was able to spend as much time with her as I did. I'm sad I won't be able to attend her funeral but please just send me some pictures.
After that, whole ordeal, my Saturday was a breeze. We went and got our baptismal candidate interviewed (He was supposed to be interviewed on Friday but zone conference went WAY late) and he was baptized on Sunday Morning and confirmed right afterwards in Sacrament meeting. Anthony is the bomb. Haha. Then yesterday we had 7 investigators at church and committed 5 of our new investigators to baptism on August 15th, to which they all accepted. The only thing that can keep you from getting sad or homesick is just working hard. That's what we've been doing and I can testify that it works.
Well that's about it. We committed 5 of our new investigators to be baptized on August 15 so we'll start to focus on getting them to that point as well. So I love you guys, I hope you can give my love to the fam. Don't worry about me. I'm going to be working harder than ever. Love you.
Elder Head
Hey Pops,
I'm sorry that your car sucks. You should just buy a new one and give that piece of crap you've got there right now to me. I'll take care of it for you. Haha.
I'm glad that even though India kicked your butt, you still had a slightly not terrible time. Haha. Some of those pictures look similar to where I'm at now. Just a ton of sweaty people everywhere. Haha. You just kind of get used to it. At least most of them are speaking English over there, when I got here I was so freaking lost. I was drenched in sweat, hot, and confused. Haha.
I admire you for taking your call so seriously Pop. I remember at first you were overwhelmed but I'm glad that you are kicking it's butt now. Haha.
Yeah you'll hear from my letter to Momma about that.
I'm now in Mosiah with the people of king Limhi in bondage. One thing that helped me on Saturday when I heard the news was Mosiah 21: 14. That's what I did when I heard the news and I can testify that it works. Haha.
Keep up the good work Pops! Love you!
Elder Head
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