Week 20

What's up suckas! How was everybody's week?

This week has been really interesting haha not a whole lot happened but Friday was a pretty crazy day!  So I don't know if you all heard about the Louisville Purge haha but supposedly there was going to be big riots in the streets of Louisville and people were gunna go crazy and stuff (we heard all this from the local Hispanic kids who really like us for some reason, they don't wanna hear about the gospel but they always see us and ask us really funny questions like if Mormons can eat meat and stuff haha) but anyway nothing even ended up happening in Louisville! We did get a call from the AP's and they told us all the missionaries in downtown Louisville had to go in to their apartments early but nothing even ended up happening as far as I know!  But! this week we've been struggling to get to see the family were teaching.  Shelbyville just got a brand new huge outdoor shopping center and she just got a job there so we haven't been meeting with them very much but we started to make some really good progress with our investigator Perla!  We were able to see her fairly often and we had a couple really really good lessons with her and the spirit was really strong and we came by to see her on Friday night and we found this note on the door......

and its really weird!  It doesn't make any sense because she was like really good friends with us.  I feel like if she wanted to stop meeting with us she would of had the courtesy to tell us AND on top of that she doesn't even speak that much English!  We went back yesterday to try again and nobody answered so we'll try again but I don't know what happened!  Needless to say, we are pretty bummed out and we started driving home and it was a little early but the night was pretty much over there was only about a half hour left in the day and my companion said hey I wanna go try Ismael, who is a really less active guy who he has never seen and we had been trying for a while so he told us to call him later and we could come visit him so we were pretty content we felt like that was the reason we came all the way over there but we decided to try and knock on Ismael's door anyway just because we were already there so we knocked and he actually answered this time!  I was amazed!  He said he had actually talked to the Hermanas today (dang Hermanas!) but he told us we could come visit him on Wednesday so this is kinda a really long story about how "the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away!" haha not that people don't have their agency but I think the Lord really guides us in life when we need it the most! It;s really easy to get discouraged sometimes, at least for me, but its super important to work hard no matter what!

I love you guys and hope you have a great week!

Week 19 "And we have suffered all manner of afflictions, and all this, that perhaps we might be the means of saving some soul; and we supposed that our joy would be full if perhaps we could be the means of saving some." Alma 26:30

 Whats up guys!

I'm glad to hear everyone is having a good time back home and enjoying the end of summer and seeing the blessings of the Lord!  When does school start again for everybody?

This week went by pretty fast! Every Monday I wake up and think where did the rest of the week go haha but its good i guess!  Its always super busy!  So an interesting thing happened to me yesterday.  At church we ran into a guy named David A. Bednar of the quorum of the 12 Apostles! Two things that surprised me were that he was a lot shorter in person and a lot nicer too haha! Usually his talks are really strict and kinda crying repentance but he was a really nice guy!  So apparently his son is a bishop here in Kentucky in a town called Crestwood and that's where we have to drive to church because our building is still under construction, and he was visiting his son and their family this week, so that was pretty cool!  I think that was the first time I've ever met a general authority!

 So this week we've been struggling a bit.  Something that I've been personally struggling with is the word "Success." I read that verse in Alma 26:27 and I really wanted to be a patient so that the Lord would give me success and when we left the CCM, the last night when we were saying goodbye everyone told us "exito" and it was just the thing to say and it made me really want to have success and lots of investigators and baptisms but when I got here I realized it wasn't like that and I thought maybe it would start picking up and to tell you the truth it hasn't really BUT I was reading in Preach My Gospel in the very first chapter and I read a section titled "Success as a Missionary" and as soon as I read the section heading my interest was immediately peaked and I encourage you guys to all read it but in summary it said that often it is to our detriment to compare ourselves with others and that is not how the Lord measures our success.  It list several things that if we as missionaries do will therefore be successful.  It made me think of the parable Jesus gave about the talents.  That God has a bigger picture in mind then I do and that he knows what I need to do to best help people and the first thing i can do is follow all those points in Preach My Gospel about how to be a successful missionary.

I read a story the other day that made me feel a lot better it talked about Abinadi and him not seeing any results of his efforts but that through him Alma was converted and the Church was started and a lot of good followed.  So I've been really thinking about grandpa's advice about quality over quantity! and something else that made me feel pretty comforted was again in Alma Chapter 26 in verse 30 that says, "And we have suffered all manner of afflictions, and all this, that perhaps we might be the means of saving some soul; and we supposed that our joy would be full if perhaps we could be the means of saving some." and really I'm not suffering anything I'm really enjoying it here haha so I can keep working!  and the very next verse is something that I hope will be true for me after my mission! "Now behold, we can look forth and see the fruits of our labors; and are they few? I say unto you, Nay, they are many; yea , and we can witness of their sincerity, because of their love towards their brethren and also towards us." The scriptures have really taken on a knew meaning for me and especially ones having to do with missionary work!

There is so much that I learn everyday being here on a mission, it is a truly humbling experience.  It makes you rely so much on the Lord because honestly without him I don't know  if I'd be able to do this everyday.  I have felt literal strength from the Lord and it has been such  a huge blessing. 

Love you all and hope you have a great week! Talk to you next Monday!  Tell everybody I love them! and yell at jack for something he probably deserves it and needs a kick in the right direction! 

Para siempre Dios este con vos! 

Elder Follett

Shelbyville District

I found a frog in my drawer and was so confused how it got in there and the next day I learned it was one of the other elders in the apartment! haha

Weird tractors that drive all over the roads in Kentucky! haha I'm pretty sure you could fit a car underneath that thing! It's a good thing they don't let me drive mission vehicles yet! haha

I saw this at walmart and i couldn't help but get it!  I don't like soda though so I just took a picture and let my companion drink it! haha

WEEK 18

Transfers!  They didn't happen haha I'm still here in Shelbyville and so is my companion and he has been here for 6 months already so I'm really starting to think that I'm going to be here for a while! which is good I guess! I got the package thank you so much!  Everything was great! I loved it all!
This week's been a pretty good week! A lot of weird stuff happened which is actually normal for Kentucky haha! But for some reason me and my companion have a real knack for finding random people at random so one day a couple weeks ago my companion decided he wanted to do one of our study hours in some forest here in Shelbyville so we drove over and parked and started walking down a trail and all the sudden we saw this guy sitting there and he saw us and said "hey elders have a seat" haha so we sat down with him and he continued to tell us his name was Henry G and he was a "Jack-Mormon" haha. He was this older guy who we think actually lived int he woods but apparently he knew alot about the church and I think he grew up in Utah but we ended up talking to him and reading from the Book of Mormon with him and I have no idea why we met him but I'm sure we were supposed to.
So another kinda crazy story we were biking around a neighborhood kinda on the edge of town where we don't go a lot an we saw a guy sitting int he grass so we went up and talked to him and he say us and said, "oh hey the missionaries whats up guys? haha and we later found out his name was Taylor and he was from Alpine, Utah and he was kinda struggling in his life right now and we talked to him for a while and he bought us McDonald's and while we were talking to him he could barely stay awake like he would be mid sentence and he would fall asleep like the whole time we were with him he tried about a dozen times to take a bit e of us big mac and he would fall asleep and drop it every time before he could bite it haha but same kinda thing I had no idea why we needed to see him but I know we needed to.
I love you guys so much! have a good week!
Elder Follett