First week in the field

Hola Todos!

The field is great! The ward I am working in is very small with less than 75 active members, but they are very close to each other and have a strong sense of missionary work and bringing back less active members.

My companion Elder Madsen and I get along OK, but we don't talk to each other very much. I hope we can become better friends so we can develop a better companionship.

In the mission home, I received a Samsung tablet. I was not expecting to get any technology on my mission so I really didn't know what to do with it when I got it. I still prefer writing things down because I remember them  better that way, but the tablet is nice.

When we first got to our area, (Lewisburg, an area where my companion had never served before) we couldn't get our area book on the tablet that tells us all of the information about the people in the area who have been taught. So we picked a street and starting trying to share our message. We really didn't have much success, but we found a nice young man named Geno who I feel would have enjoyed our discussions, but the tablet died and we lost his number. Please pray that he can read the Book of Mormon we gave him and that we can find him again.

On the second day, we managed to get the area book up and running. In the morning we went to a food bank and helped make hundreds of bags of food for less fortunate people. We met the bishop of the ward there which was really cool. That evening we had a dinner appointment with some members and a new investigator named Holly. I'm so used to serving dinner to missionaries at our house that it was really weird to be the missionary at the members home. With Holly, we helped her feel more confident in her little bit of faith that she had about the church. Then we set a date for her to prepare to be baptized and she accepted! My first lesson in the field, and we are already setting baptismal dates! Incredible! After our lesson with Holly, we met a few more members of the ward, the Trump family. They have a sister who is not a member yet, but she has a lot of interest in the church, and I'm sure we will make a lot progress.

Saturday morning, we worked at a recycling plant to help bale recycled cardboard and aluminum cans so they could be made into something new. It was pretty cool, but Elder Madsen and I feel like we have better things that we can do on a Saturday morning like talking with people. Later in the afternoon we met some members of the ward who had only been members for about three years. They were really cool. Next we helped a different family whose house was hit by a drunk driver. We scrapped glue and paint off of wall pieces  so they could be put back in their places. The father of that family has one of the driest senses of humor of anyone I have met, so if we return to provide more help, I'm going to have to get used to his humor. Then we visited another family, the Labarge family. The mother was baptized 2 years ago, but the father has been struggling with his smoking addiction and hadn't yet been baptized. Please pray for him to overcome his cigarette addiction. On the way to our next contact, we met a woman named Cindy who had had a troubling past, but knew of our church so we set up a time to meet with her and her daughter. Finally at the end of the day, we met with a man named Mark and his son Sincere. Mark has been looking for a church that can help teach his son. We taught him about the importance of the Book of Mormon in gaining a testimony of the truth of the restoration.

Sunday was great also. We met all of the great members of the ward and taught a few more people. We brought the sacrament to an older woman in the ward. It was amazing to see how much peace she felt afterwards. While we were going to our next appointment  we met a man named Jim who had experienced things that had led him to believe that God had a purpose for him. At the end of the day on Sunday, we met with Cindy who we had found the day before. She and her daughter Angie were very excited to talk all about the Bible stories and the things they believed in. They want to choose the right, but they just don't quite know what that is yet. I hope they have a desire to pray to find out and read the scriptures.

We only have one Spanish investigator, so I am not getting very many opportunities to speak Spanish. I hope that I can make more time to do so.

Continue praying for the Visas for the missionaries going to Ecuador!

Overall there are a lot of great people here. There are also a lot of people here who aren't interested in our message. It is very hard to be sharing a message that you know has brought you joy and happiness in your life and have others turn you away and close the door. At the same time it is incredible to find people ready to hear the word of God. I hope they are as ready as I think they are. 

When Christ was on the Earth, he suffered rejection also. Some people didn't want to hear the message he shared. As a representative of Christ, I will be rejected also, but I will do it because I love him.

I've got lots of growing up and learning to do here in Lewisburg. But I know that by serving God with all of my might mind and strength, we will have his help. 

Matthew 10:39 - He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.

Continue praying for the Visas for the missionaries going to Ecuador!

Hasta luego!

Elder Cloward