Brock - August 22

There´s a strange, tight feeling in my chest as I write this letter. How odd it is, being so far away from you all, yet being right by you as we send Parker off. It´s strange as I see in my mind´s eye precisely that forever first day, the longest six weeks he´ll ever experience. Having to get used to new relation types, between companions, other elders and sisters, members and bishops. New food. And then, as it becomes old food after eating it every day. The first time he´ll realize he understood and participated in a conversation. His first holiday. I don´t know exactly what he´ll face--I can´t read his future--but I can tell his emotions, reacting to new things and his frustration and faith and pressure and obedience. I can´t imagine the large emptiness of the house, the smallness of our table. Just like the beginning of the mission, when everything passed so slowly, to now where everything is picking up speed, each of us leaving the house has started out slow and then began to accelerate. 

This week, as all recently, flew by. We had a division on Wednesday with the zone leaders. At some point after lunch, perhaps half an hour or more after, in the hot afternoon sun, I said alound jokingly, "I sure hope some kind of breeze picks up, or I´ll end up falling asleep walking." By six o´clock I had begun to reconsider my joke, because we had been getting hit by strong, cold winds since four and into the evening. 

What started out looking great quickly deterioted by Sunday. The man who had been to church the previous week ended up going out of town, and still hasn´t our phone calls. Another family that we´ve been teaching almost the whole transfer was doing well, finally. The mom had been preparing herself to be baptized in another church until some other churchgoers there "drove her away". This week we taught them the Restoration (again) and they seemed to understand it. She´s been very interested in the accounts in the Book of Mormon. She´s read right through ´til halfway through 2 Nephi, and has been able to recite back the stories to us. The problem this leaves is that she is too interested in the stories than to ask God if the book is true. She also had a few questions to ask us. Seeing that she didn´t have very many, she went online to find more questions, looking on anti-Mormon sites and videos. She left us a list of fifteen questions--most poor attempts and misconstrued interpretations of Joseph Smith´s words, some about temple ceremonies. Then on Sunday, the Gospel Principles class was about tithing. She doesn´t believe that tithing is ten-percent because "nowhere in the Bible does it say ten-percent", even though tithing means a "tenth-part", which any competent Bible dictionary (of which there are various) can tell you. So she´s pretty steamed about Church yesterday. We´re visiting today to try to see if the situation is salvable or if we should just bear our testimonies one more time and leave their names in the area book. 

Recently I´ve enocuntered a fairly new concept for me. People, by way of faith, obedience, and prayer, can secure blessings on groups of people or individuals, these blessings lasting up to generations after and beyond. An example of this comes from Enos.

 11 And after I, Enos, had heard these words, my faith began to be unshaken in the Lord; and I prayed unto him with many long strugglings for my brethren, the Lamanites.

 12 And it came to pass that after I had prayed and labored with all diligence, the Lord said unto me: I will grant unto thee according to thy desires, because of thy faith.

 13 And now behold, this was the desire which I desired of him—that if it should so be, that my people, the Nephites, should fall into transgression, and by any means be destroyed, and the Lamanites should not be destroyed, that the Lord God would preserve a record of my people, the Nephites; even if it so be by the power of his holy arm, that it might be brought forth at some future day unto the Lamanites, that, perhaps, they might be brought unto salvation—

Enos prayed fervently--he was good at that--for the welfare of his brethren the Lamanites. Because of his righteousness, his "unshaken" faith, and the prayers of many of his forefathers, the days of the Lamanites were extended, that they might be convinced of the error of their ways, and repent. This great repentance did not come as soon as Enos asked--in fact, many Nephites dismissed efforts to convert the Lamanites, incredulously thinking that they were lost. But as testified by Ammon, and Aaron, and Omner, and Himni, that many of the Lamanites were brought to an understanding of the truth. It has put a lot of perspective into my mission work. The reason for our strict obedience and faithfulness, and our constant prayer, is that through our righteousness the Lord will bless others--with willing hearts, with favorable circumstances, and with the Spirit. We have a great duty, not just as missionaries but as those who know the way and truth, to pray fervently, for the welfare of the world, that, as Nephi put it, "many of us, if not all, may be saved in his kingdom at that great and last day." I love you all.

Elder Blaylock