Fulness of Joy

What a fantastic week. So over transfers last week we got a ton of new missionaries in our zone and it has been sooo amazing. 3 of the missionaries are brand new to the mission field. A couple of other ones just got done being trained so there is a lot of young missionaries in the zone right now, but it is awesome because they all have so much fire. We have been seeing so many miracles as a zone already. I am really looking forward to this transfer. 

So this week was a little rough for Elder Anderson and I as far as our investigators go. We ended up having to stop teaching Deborah and Kristen. It was hard but they just needed some more time. They just weren't keeping any of their commitments or coming to church at all and it felt like they were kinda going through the motions. Erica on the other hand it still doing fantastic. She fasted yesterday so she could finally finish smoking. It was a big step of faith for her. We can just feel her desire and testimony grow every time we meet with her. It is such a rewarding thing. 

We have been meeting with Ronnie, one of the less active members of our ward for the last 3 months. He has been doing amazing. When we first started meeting with him he had just gotten out of rehab for his alcohol addiction. This last week he fell back into it again and it was so sad to see. As we were helping him through this struggle it caused me to ponder on the nature of our Heavenly Father and what he wants for us. A quote by Ezra Taft Benson came to mind. 

"God love us; the devil hates us. God wants us to have a fullness of joy as he has. The devil wants us to be miserable as he is. God gives us commandments to bless us. The devil would have us break these commandments to curse us."

This is so true. I am thankful for a loving Heavenly Father that wants to lift us and help us to become better. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is his perfect plan to do just that. 

I love you all and hope your week was wonderful.

Love,

 

Elder Hallmark