Alright Iakwe aolep!! This week was pretty exciting, definitely had some good experiences and learned a couple of things for sure, still a whole lot of frustrations at times and I feel like I have no idea what I'm doing but hey as long as I rely on The Lord everything will work out for the best. I guess the first story I'll tell is about one of our investigators named Ennah. She is around 30 years old and she is a really nice lady, her boyfriend is a member and they are working on getting married which is nice. She agreed to study with us at the beginning of last week and the lessons have been going fairly well, then we got to the lesson of Joseph Smith and the Restoration and she had quite a few questions. She didn't disagree with anything we were saying she just had a difficult time believing it. So anyways on Monday we were supposed to do a family home evening there with her and her husband, but when we got there she was really sick, both her and her daughter. They couldn't eat anything, they were dizzy and trouble moving around and were just not doing that well. So my companion and I went and gave them both a blessing and literally within 5 minutes, they were eating walking around and they felt as if they were never sick. The main question that she had about this church was where Joseph Smith received that authority from and if there really was any such thing. That experience was definitely an answer to her question, as she spoke I could tell that she was beginning to understand the truth of these things and the things that we were teaching her. After she recovered from her sickness the first thing she did was she went and watched the restoration video, and started asking her soon to be husband a bunch of questions. I really love this couple and they are doing well, plus they both came to church on Sunday and stayed for all the classes which is a feat in and of itself. So that was a huge blessing and definitely see miracles in this work. The second investigator is a man named Clay, who is probably one the most prepared people I've ever studied with. We just started with him last week, but he's very intelligent and understands a lot about the bible, which truly does help. Every lesson that we have with him, the spirit is always there, and as we were teaching him about the plan of salvation, he started talking about his father. His father was a religious man, but he didn't always keep the commandments and things like that, he was a smoker, and his son wanted to help him change, but before he knew it he had passed away. That experience set us up perfectly for the temple and the knowledge that he can do his father's work still, that it's not too late and there is a way to still help him. I have honestly never felt the spirit testify so strongly to me of my Father in Heaven's love for each one of his Children, it's amazing to see what the spirit can do. He also said that in the week that he has been studying with my companion and I, that he feels that he knows us better and feels more connected to us than he does his own son who he has known for 18 years. Now we're just trying to take all that and help him strengthen his own family and build that relationship with his son, and all of his other kids. But that was a pretty cool experience as well, and I've been having more and more of those lately. I've also had some of the best personal studies I've had lately and I've been focusing a lot on preach my gospel. The two cool things that I learned this week, were about service and success. I believe in chapter 3 lesson 5 it talks about service, and I love the first sentence in that section it says "one of the great blessings of the church is the opportunity to serve." That really stuck out to me because I've never really thought about it like that before, it's not that we have to do all these things, or we're forced to, it's that we are blessed to have the opportunity to do it. No matter if we're busy or we get tired or whatever, when we serve and fulfill our callings we are, first and foremost, allowing the Lord to bless us and help shape us into better people and more successful people. I really found that interesting and when we change our perspective, on service, and working and doing all these things, we serve because we want to and it does not become a burden. Then I gave my district meeting on being successful missionaries and one of the interesting things that I saw about success is that success stems from our desires, and there are different levels of success. If our desire is simply to just get through the day, and at the end of the day we got through it, okay I guess that was successful, you achieved the outcome of your desire. But if you change your desire and remember that desire, before you go out and work, or do whatever, your level of success will be vastly increased. If your desire is to go out and help everyone you come in contact with, and then go and do it, you will become a successful missionary, that's the key. You can be successful according to your own wants and desires, but in the grand scheme of things, that is not really success. We need to allign our desires with that Supreme Being that knows all, and then we will become happier than we can even begin to realize. Hopefully that made sense, because I thought it was a pretty cool study and I learned a lot!! But yeah let's see what else did you ask about.. haha this email is huge.. The district is doing well, the comp still is having struggles. I have just made the sad realization that I am quite his mom. I cook, clean and take care of him. The family from Wotje will be sealed sometime in December, most likely in Hawaii, if I could some how be there, that would be awesome! But I think that's all for now, nothing else I think, since I said a lot, but I love you all a ton and hope that all is going well back at home!
Lots of lovin'
From Elder Jordan Michelson
Mom's note
Jordan didn't send pictures for a bit they don't really go with this email but they are pictures and fun to see.
Elder Michelson and his BYU football playing companion Elder Mafuli
Loved this one!!!
