January 2, 2012 E-Mail

We had a great week but nothing really exciting happened.  New Years Eve was great.  We were given permission to watch one of a few movies.  So we chose to watch 17 miracles.  It's a great movie but quite the tear jerker.  There was also a baptism for some other missionaries that night and my companion spoke at it so we went there.  After we went home and fell asleep.  I can't believe it's 2012!  We went on exchanges this week with the spanish elders in our zone, it was nice to be able to speak all spanish again.  Our personal area has really struggled with finding and teaching, but the day of exchanges my companion and another elder found a couple of investigators.  So that was a miracle for us.  I'm really excited that the holidays are over.  Now people will have to come up with another excuse to not listen to us.  Even our investigators told us that they were to busy to meet with us for the week.  We spent a lot of time just trying to meet members on the ward list.  My companion was only here for 5 weeks before me so he doesn't know people to well.  One of the best ways recently in our mission to find new investigators is to take active members on church tours and then ask them if they have any friends they can invite.  Well church tours started here in our ward about a year ago so a lot of the active members haven't been on one for a long time.  We are going to start doing those again and hopefully that will help our work pick up.
This week is going to be a crazy one.  We have our zone leader council meeting in Spokane tomorrow and then a couple more training meetings later on in the week here in Moses lake.  I think we will be in meetings for about 20 hours this week.  It should be good to help uplift us and increase the work.
One investigator we are working with named Dean is doing well and progressing.  But he has a hard time with the word of wisdom.  He has been to Iraq a few times and has a hard time sleeping because of nightmares and things.  So a little alcohol helps him sleep at night.  We are trying to help him strengthen his faith in Christ so that he can let Christ take that away from him and help him.  He's a great guy he has just been through a lot and is going through a lot still.  And honestly that was pretty much our week.  Hopefully things will get better.  Things are actually going great and the time is flying by so fast that a lot more probably happened this week I just can't remember it.
This week we have talked a lot about the plan of salvation in many lessons and also in church and things.  I know that God has designed a perfect plan for us.  He has done it all just so we can be happy.  I know that he sent His only Begotten Son to the earth to atone for our sins.  I am so grateful for that.  I love you all so much.  Thanks for everything.  Have a great week!
Love Elder Schvaneveldt