Conference was amazing of course. As always. I think I've
really learned to appreciate it so much more since I have been serving as a
full time missionary. I never used to get this excited about it.
I particularly enjoyed the parable of the tomato plant. It
served perfectly to illustrate the lesson taught. This is exactly what has been
happening to the work here in our area.
There are several people with whom we have been working in our Ward
whose testimonies have wilted because of neglect, and only the living water of
the Gospel of Christ will be able to heal the parched soil in which they find
themselves rooted, and bring their wilted tree of testimony back to life. That
seed of faith, even the merest desire to believe, if cultivated will bloom
again, and will bear fruit, and if the principles of the gospel are observed,
and diligently obeyed, before long we will see millions and millions of
tomatoes. And we will bring for a bounteous harvest for the Lord. (See: https://www.lds.org/general-conference/watch/2013/04?lang=eng&vid=2282048318001&cid=10)We witnessed one rather... iconic (?) miracle this week. I'm not sure if you'll know what I'm talking about, as I am finding it difficult to think of a specific example of this phenomenon in film. But if you will remember that in some movies there is a scene where the hero walks into a nearly deserted diner and orders something to eat or drink, but almost as soon as the words our out of his mouth someone else speaks up across the room and picks up his bill. Our hero, and his mysterious benefactor, then sit together and discus something, usually of great significance to the plot. This happened to Elder W and myself earlier this week. We had been street contacting in a historic district where a lot of people walk around on beautiful sunny days. This particular day of which we are speaking was decidedly not sunny or nice, in fact it was rather viciously miserable and wet. We had met very few pleasant people thus far that day, and were pretty cold and hungry, when we were walking past a 50's themed diner which had a great deal on a Milkshake a Fry combo. Elder W mentioned to me that he has been walking past this diner for over two months and he has yet to try their food. He then suggested that we stop in, order some, and then take it back to our apartment for lunch. After some convincing I agreed. Just like in the movies no sooner had we ordered and were about to pay when an elderly mustached gentleman spoke up from across the room, "Put it on my bill! They’re good Mormon boys out spreading the word!" He then invited us to sit with him and proceeded to tell us about how he had just finished reading Brigham Young's biography and how interesting he found it. We thanked him for his generosity and began to talk about what he knew of the church and answer his questions. We answered as many questions as we could and tried hard to keep our answer simple and focused on the Gospel. It wasn't easy as what he seemed interested in was mostly deep doctrine, but in the end we had a really good conversation and a pretty tasty snack. We invited him to come to Conference with us to hear our current Prophet speak (it seems like all we did all week was invite people to Conference). However, he declined as he was going to be out of town, but he gave us his card with his contact information and said he would love to talk to us again sometime. So we will be contacting him later this week.
Maybe that doesn't sound as spectacular as it felt at the time, but it sure seemed like a miracle to me.
With all of the inviting to Conference that we’ve done this last week, we didn’t have any luck having anyone take us up on our invitation. :( I'm trying not to let it get me down but we haven't been having a great deal of success here in our area. We're just struggling to get the ball rolling really. We have met lots of nice people, we've even met a few that have seemed pretty interested, and I've noticed so many miracles here, but we’re just not teaching people consistently. I don't know what to do but keep trying. I guess that's all we can do. :)
Oh! Hey, I love you. I don't know if I've told you that yet this week.
Elder Thomson
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