Semana 10: Cast Out Devils?

October 26, 2020

Hey y'all!! This week has been an absolute rollercoaster of emotions! Definitely the hardest week being a missionary thus far! But I am so grateful for my reliance on the Lord to help me get through this week and the weeks to come! Despite it being a really hard week I was able to learn a lot of lessons and ways to better cope with stress. That I am extremely grateful for. I've needed to heavily rely on prayer this week and it has brought me so much closer to Christ and my Heavenly Father.

Anyways, we didn't have many lessons this week which is probably why it was so longggg ahah! We spent most hours of the day just finding people over the phone making hundreds of calls a day. We had a pretty successful week and were able to get 8 return appointments!! 6 of those 9 are now in our teaching pool as new friends and that is absolutely INSANE! The weeks prior we were lucky to get two. Miracles are happening all over in the Syracuse mission and we even got attention from President Uctdorf because of our insane amount of success we have had during COVID times! Our mission found 190 new friends in a single week! The work of the Lord is progressing day by day and it has really strengthened our testimonies.

We had exchanges on Thursday and our district leader, Elder Payne, spent the day with Elder Culebro and I (the trainees). We made sure to be on our best behavior :) and to really try to learn from his teaching skills. He is a very quiet kid and soft spoken, our goal for him before he goes home was to "email the females" ahaha. We had a lot of success from him and we learned a lot. That day we were able to find 4 new friends with him. Exchange miracles are always talked about in this mission and apparently it is a real thing!

Exchanges

We called this one number neighbor from some random number in our area book and a college professor answered the phone! We talked for like 45 minutes because she was so talkative and she knew a lot about our church! She loved our culture and she wanted to learn more about our church! She said she wasn't interested in converting quite yet but we'll fix that :) she even offered to share our number with all of her students if they ever wanted to learn more about our church! So we just got someone to refer like 200 college students to us so we will be expecting some calls pretty soon ahah! She seems so elect and we connected with her very well on a personal basis.

Pretty

So we called this one person in our area book who hasn't been taught in several years named Sandy and Wayne. To say it simply, they are crazy. We called them and just listened to them screeching and asking us how to cast out devils and it was the weirdest thing ever. We shared with them a scripture and told them to pray. It was by far the weirdest phone call of my entire life. The next day we gave them a call and Sandy answered the phone, started crying, and said "you Elders changed my life and I want to strengthen by relationship with God because of you. I am going to start going to church again now and do Bible study with you guys". We were just sitting there confused because our last phone call was us just listened to them screaming in the background and we didn't say anything. It was the strangest experience thus far but now we have a new friend because of it lol!

President Vest shared an amazing talk by Elder Holland titled "Be Ye Therefore Perfect -- Eventually" and it is such an amazing talk.

He says, "My brothers and sisters, except for Jesus, there have been no flawless performances on this earthly journey we are pursuing, so while in mortality let’s strive for steady improvement without obsessing over what behavioral scientists call “toxic perfectionism.”

Many of us get caught up in this idea that we must be perfect in all that we do which can then lead to a lot of stress and discouragement. Toxic perfectionism is something that a lot of people struggle with and it is important to understand and remind yourself that nobody is perfect. If there was no such thing as the Atonement then there would only be one person out of all mankind who would be saved... and that is Jesus Christ. He carried the burdens of the world so we can become perfected through God's grace. As we strive for steady improvements every day then we are on the right path and there is nothing to be worried about. God doesn't expect you to be perfect and neither does anyone else around you. President Vest told me, "If you think about it, we are all hypocrites. We all make mistakes. But once we repent and better ourselves we are able to stand as witnesses of Jesus Christ's Atonement and we can then help others change their lives and feel of God's grace and charity. And that is what missionary work is all about". It is so true. I know that God loves steady improvements and just expect us to be instantly perfect. It is called eternal progression for a reason! God loves you all! Don't ever forget that.

I hope everyone has an amazing week! I love you all!

-Elder Scown