"Commitment is doing the thing you said you would do, long after the mood you said it in has left you." George R. Zalucki


Monday, February 15, 2010

Hello again Sister Bassett
 
Here are some more miracles.
 
Yesterday was interesting. I had become a little discouraged because it seemed I wasn't having much success with TTIing people. Seemed like a lot of people just didn't want to hear from us. We had to make copys, and we like to walk that part to talk to more people. There was a man sitting on a bench. I didnt want to talk to him but the spirit told me to. So when I actually opened my mouth and listened to him everything just flowed and just from there on I didn't have a problem talking to people. We actually had gotten a great contact for the missionaries that cover central ward Phoenix that day.
 
Another miracle is with the sisters in our district. For a ling time they were struggling to TTI. Not because they were scared but because there was no one to talk to but then all of a sudden their TTI numbers skyrocketed and have been high ever since. Before they have been lucky to get 40 a week but now they have been getting about 80 to 90. I asked what was it that they changed and they said it was because they have been praying and making TTIs the deepest desire of their hearts.
 
One more miracle. Yesterday we taught a lesson to a young man. He has some smoking and some drug problems but this past week since we set up a plan to help him quit he has been taking off. Also when we taught him, his girlfriend (who we are teaching and also has a baptismal date) left for a sec to the bathroom. We continued to teach and when she came back he explained everything to her clearly and simply. It was awesome. I was so proud of him.
 
Time is short.
 
Love Elder Thomas

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When I was 14 or 15, I had a teacher that prided himself on being a thinker. We had some enlightening discussions in his classroom. He helped me ask some great questions that led to tremendous answers that still guide me today. We agreed on many things, but were at odds on a few. One of them was religion. I had a lot of respect for this man, but it amazed me that someone who claimed to be open minded was blind to just how closed minded he was when it came to God. He was always challenging my faith. He considered my beliefs to be a sign of my weakness. His claim was that unless it could be acknowledged by the 5 senses, there was no proof that God existed. I struggled as a young person to help him understand that he was limiting his understanding to what he had personally experienced, cutting himself off from other possibilities. The best that I could do was to try and help him understand how I knew; that things of the spirit could only be understood and perceived by the spirit. Years later, I still don't have a better answer to this one fundamental question, but I face the same dilemma. This blog is dedicated to preserving stories and experiences of missionaries in the Arizona Mesa Mission both during and after their formal missions. Some stories are fun and light hearted, but others are of a spiritual nature. The blog forum is so convenient, yet the format is limiting. There is more to these words than letters on a page. To truly understand the messages requires not only an open mind, but a soft heart.

After all, "A man's reach should exceed his grasp, else what's a Heaven for?- Robert Browning"

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