This has been a challenging and yet miraculous week. It seems that is usually how the Lord works in our lives. In the midst of our greatest afflictions and trials, if we have faith and the right attitude, the Lord still works miracles in our lives and all we have to do is ask Him in sincere faith and He will help us recognize them and completely change our perspective. This week I have been really struggling with praying more sincerely, faithfully, and concisely and with trying to stay focused on listening to and recognizing the quiet yet powerful promptings of the Spirit. I think a lot of times I just get distracted with thinking about other things while I am praying rather than just taking the time to truly understand that I am communicating with my Heavenly Father and pondering over the many things He has taught me and blessed me with and relying upon the Spirit to know what to say. Those distractions waste a lot of time, but I am thankful for my Savior's Atonement and His continual encouragement and hand in my life to support me and lead me on towards repenting and drawing closer to Him. I think a lot about the message given in General Conference by Sister McConkie who talked about how prayer is a sacred time in which all 3 members of the Godhead are involved. It has really put into perspective for me how important, miraculous, and blessed prayer is for us in our lives. How grateful I am to my Heavenly Father that He is willing to listen to you and me and all of His children about the feelings of their hearts and the experiences of their lives and then patiently and lovingly provide assistance, guidance, and correction. I have also come to realize that there is a lot in Preach My Gospel, much more than just the principles that need to be taught to investigators. The Lord has blessed me particularly to look at the Book of Mormon, Improving Teaching Skills, and How To Recognize and Understand the Spirit sections. I haven't really gotten into them a lot but I am excited to study more from them along with the Utilizing Time Effectively and Wisely section. I really appreciated your thoughts and experiences, Dad, on recognizing the Spirit and I agree with your thoughts on the need to ponder more sincerely and reverently and will try that throughout the week. How amazing it was that you were teaching and thinking about the same things I was struggling with and striving to improve at. As I think back on the blessing I received from the Lord through Pres. Firmage, the Lord has truly helped me see how He has given me those promised blessings and I am so grateful for them. By the way, to this day I still utilize your example with Peter, the apostle, and several of your other examples when sharing my thoughts on the gospel with others. You, Mom, and everybody have truly been incredible blessings in my life and have all greatly taught me through your examples and testimonies about the gospel and how to better and more fully follow our Savior. You have all really helped me prepare for my mission and I am so thankful for all of your efforts.This week was also full of miracles and experiences. One day we were planning on going tracting and were walking down Broad St. and I saw a lady up ahead who was getting her mail. I thought that we should stop and talk to her as we walked past, but then she started to walk back down her driveway so I thought it would be a little awkward to go and talk to her. We kind of just paused at the end of her driveway and waited to cross the street. Almost immediately she looked back and called out to us, asking us if we were Mormons. We turned around and said yes and then went over to talk to her. She started crying and talking about how she was just fed up with all the negativeness that was in the world and news and she hugged us and thanked us for sacrificing our time to come out to share with people the joy and peace of the gospel. We got to giver her a pamphlet about the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and a Book of Mormon and bore our testimonies about it. She was so prepared and we are excited to be able to teach her. Her name is Brangatha, named after a character in an opera. The Lord really taught me that day what Pres. Tanner taught us in seminary one time about not being afraid to cross the "awkward line" to share the gospel and follow the Spirit. The Lord definitely humbled me and seemingly told me that "If you won't go up to talk to her, then I'll have her talk to you." It was truly an incredible and miraculous experience. We also had some long days tracting this week but they proved to be fruitful and the Lord guided us to some individuals and families who were prepared and willing to invite us back to hear the Lord's message. We have also continued to do some service for another church here and have made some great friends who have asked some great questions and we are excited to continue to share the gospel with them. The pastor at one time was even willing to meet with us and talk with us about what we did and what we believed. We also went out with Bro. Childs (our awesome High Priest's Group Leader) on Saturday night to go visit a less active out in Woodbury. It was awesome. They welcomed us in wholeheartedly and had apparently been less active because they worked on Sundays, but they were hoping to change that this year. Their daughter and her family had just moved in that day as well and came to church the next day. Everyone was so excited to see a new family come into the Branch. We pray and are excited to continue to serve the Lord and to invite others to come and join us and enjoy the peace, hope, happiness, and love of the gospel. We also had an assistant pastor whom we have been meeting with come to sacrament meeting yesterday! His name is Antwain and he is a great guy. He had to leave early so we are excited to discuss with him his experience. We are also excited to continue working with Jaylen and to see his sincerity and progress in the gospel grow and we will continue to work with him on preparing for baptism. Thank you all for your wonderful letters. They have all lifted me up and have blessed my life. By the way congratulations in lacrosse Andrew and thanks for the letter Lydia. I will try to write you and everybody soon. Good luck Emme with Crush and I hope you continue to have fun with volleyball and I'll pray that you make the team that you are supposed to be on. Also, excited for Mandy to be home and I hope she continues to get better. Tell Jack and Levi thanks for their prayers and that I am grateful for the example they have been to me and all that they have taught me. I love you all and I know that this is the Lord's work and that this is His restored church and gospel and that He lives! Just as Elder Uchtdorf talked about, what a glorious message and plan our Heavenly Father has for us, His children. Thank you also for your thoughts on the 4th floor, last door talk. I thought about it a lot, especially while we were tracting and have really loved his message on having faith (and on what it is and can and cannot do) and being committed to work (being committed to serve our Heavenly Father and our Savior). By the way, I have met Elder Legg a couple of times and he is actually from Middleton so I know that Bailey is in good hands and will learn a lot from him. Thanks for the e-mails of the other missionaries as well mom and for getting that blog and everything put up for me. I hope you all have a great week and continue to look for and recognize the Spirit and the Lord's hand in your lives.
This ends the message of the happy missionary!
Love,
Elder Daric Meyers
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