Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day!

This week has been a roller coaster of emotions spiritualness.

First off, the Mother's Day call was super good! It was wonderful to
hear from y'all.

So this week started off as probably one of the hardest of my mission
so far. On Tuesday, we were up in the Warren part of our area, and we
had hardly been there an hour trying to contact our investigators when
stuff starts going haywire. All of a sudden our investigators in
Warren either send us a text, or when we go visit them in person
virtually send us the same message: "we aren't interested anymore." It
was super sad. We lost six investigators in less than an hour. Ouch!
We really didn't know why this was happening, but all I could think
about was Ammon and how he was cast out, but in the scriptures the
Lord comforted him and said he will give unto him success. So it was
really hard but we did our best not to be grieved.

And the Lord has blessed us with miracles since!

We had a super miracle yesterday, and it happened so fast I could feel
the Lord taking the reins and guiding us by the spirit. We had a whole
bunch of plans fall through/ investigators were busy and couldn't meet
right then, so we decided to go tracting on a street near by. We
didn't know what the Lord was preparing for us. The second door we
knocked on, an older gentleman opened the door and immediately invited
us in. That doesn't happen everyday. We asked if he'd spoken to
missionaries before and he began telling us of the two other
missionaries who came by and talked about the 144,00 and other JW
things. We cleared up that confusion, how they were JW and we are
different. He was surprised that we were different, and asked us what
we believed. So we taught him the full Restoration, right then and
there. It all happened so fast that we had to slow things down a bit
so the spirit could testify of what we speak being true. It went super
well, he just didn't understand authority too well, so we're going to
talk some more about it next time. It was so weird, this guy was well
versed in the bible and agreed with much of what we said. He said he
needs to read some of the Book of Mormon and ask us questions next
time. This was probably the first time in my mission that the
investigator tried to set up a return appointment before we could.
This was a super amazing experience and I'm hopeful for the future.

We also put one of our other investigators on date for baptism! He's a
younger kid, and his mom is a less active member. Colton loves to fish
and he said he's been to other churches because he knows he needs to
be in church, but he doesn't like other ones. They don't feel right to
him. So when we taught him the Restoration he said everything made
sense (which it does), and that he'll have to give the Book of Mormon
a try. And then he agreed to be baptized! He said he's been saved but
not baptized and would like to be haha. We're gonna clear that up with
him next time we go over.

The analogy I learned on the mission that goes well with this week is
the bow and arrow analogy. When the Lord pulls you back with hardships
and trials, it's only because He's about to shoot you forward. We just
need to endure, be patient, and trust His plan.

Hope to hear more from you soon!

Love,
Elder Blackburn