No More Lillian, but now Evaline!

September 26, 2011

Mom, family and friends,

Well, mom your letter was very informative and I liked hearing about all that Danielle has been up to and also hearing that she hasn’t forgotten poor ol Elder Leash ;). So she is on the road with driver’s training, I’ll keep her and her teacher in my prayers lol, jk boo boo I know you will do great :). Now please remind me who Harold and Darlene are? I have gained quit a reputation lately for my forgetfulness not only with names, but with just about anything; this can be quit frustrating especially when trying to think of scriptures in lessons, ha-ha luckily we work in pairs. I guess I am just following in mom’s footsteps with the early onset of Alzheimer’s lol.
It was so great to hear about your missionary efforts, you mom with Jocelyn and Danielle with her school secretary, way to go boo, preach it like its hot!!!! So do you think that Danielle is serious about a mission? I hope so :), but I am sure she will do great things no matter where she is!
Food is going ok, we seem to find ourselves eating out 3-4 times a week lately :/, part of it is cuz we are so busy, but another part is probably because we don’t have so much to eat at the house; we eat LOTS of pband j, lots of pancakes, some pasta, and ....yea that’s about it, we get creative.
Work is going well. I mentioned last week that we got a ward mission leader; we are going to have our first correlation tonight! I think that I have had a total of maybe 4 or 5 correlations since I’ve been out lol, im excited. Even though I haven’t had too many correlations I have had some great support from the members in areas I’ve been in. Other exciting events include a young adult meeting that we attended yesterday after church; the youth here are going to start to get more active with activities etc, I’m stoked, I think it will be great for mish work down here, especially because one of the sisters from Zoetemeer comes down here to comes to church with her boyfriend that is a non-member lately!
One of many great opportunities that these activities will help take advantage of! This week has been good, lots of traveling. Monday we ended up taking one for the team and fitting some appointments in then because the next few days we would be on the road. Tuesday we had district meeting, and then got back from Eindhoven and had to get back on another train headed to Antwerp, Belgium to spend the night before heading out to District leader council up in Leiden. The next day; by the time we got back to Heerlen, Wednesday was gone. In spite of the fact that two full days we gone we still ended up being able to salvage our week and see some great things happen, among them was finding a solid investigator in Heerlen Centrum, who at one point during our conversation, said “can I come to church?”.
I know I’m not a member yet, but would that be ok?" It gets better, this lady speaks English and Dutch and seems as though she would fit right in with the ward, in fact she already knows one of the solid members in the ward already, and to put the cherry on top this women seems to be completely sane! What a blessing! Her name is Evaline; please keep her in your prayers! We found some other positive ppl as well and planted many seeds as well. Something that has been frustrating to me lately is my scripture knowledge as well as how ppl so often get caught up with the Bible etc that they are not open for more scripture. Mostly all we can do is bear sincere testimony and try to invite the spirit to soften their heart.
I do have some bad news; we met with an investigator on Monday, Joyce. She herself had a baptismal date but we had to drop her first of all because it was difficult fellowshipping her because she can be very shy, and because she speaks absolutely NO English, and because there isn’t really anyone her age at church and we could get joint teaches out to her and because we were only able to get her to church once. The second reason we had to drop her for was because she would just turn off if we would read scriptures or try to teach something; Elder Brown and I tried acting scriptures out and spice things up a bit, it helped some but not enough. The third reason we had to drop her was because she, like so many, was looking for a church that fit her wants and comfort zone etc and she had been going to Victory Outreach where she had long standing ties etc. A real bummer, we did our best.
This brings me to my next peace of bad news. During the last appointment we had with Joyce, she mentioned she saw Lillian earlier that week in the city. We were surprised that she knew Lillian, we asked her how she did and she said that she knew we knew her because she saw her at our church during the one time she came but that she knows her originally from the Victory Outreach church where she informed us she has seen and known Lillian for the last year and a half more or less.....when Joyce said that I felt like I got punched in the bread basket! I felt cheated on ha-ha but really just really hurt! Lillian had shared some concerns; her family teasing her for coming to church, being already baptized etc but the real and deepest concern finally came out. She had ties to us but obviously similar ties with this other church and the ppl there. It is clear now that she was letting social relationships affect her testimony and not focusing only on her relationship with God.
After hearing that from Joyce we called Lillian up and I told her how we felt; frankly a little hurt and disappointed that she had failed to be completely open with us etc. and that she is still welcome in church of course, but that we can’t really meet with her for appointments and lessons unless she is progressing toward baptism and full activity in our church; it was a tough lesson to learn, but I know now that often if someone takes longer than two months to fully commit to baptism then there are concerns that you have not yet fully addressed.
If your feeling a little bummed with me please read the first half of my letter again; I am bummed, but also glad that we are not wasting the Lord's time anymore with ppl who are not ready to come unto Christ by receiving the restored gospel and partaking of baptism. We have already made big strides in finding more who are prepared to take those steps! A good week and I think this next will be just as good if for no other reason than the fact that we have General Conference woo woo! I’m trying to read the entire last conference edition before Saturday, wish me luck! Well I really need to go, I’ve been on too long lol, love yawl lots and have a great week and talk to you soon!

Love,

Elder Leash