Elder Johnson found me this morning, wide awake after a night of feasting upon the american treats Sister Teal sent me!
We loaded this truck up this morning! There was so much flippin' stuff! Good workout, felt good to lift things again :)
Cromer beach
Previous assistant Elder Dominguez came to Norwich Interviews yesterday
'Are those signs for Manchester?'
Hey everyone!
This week has been busy, busy, busy. We had interviews on Monday which is always a great experience. We received a training on the Holy Ghost being THE teacher and not A teacher. It makes all the difference. I remember in the MTC when president Edwards asked me what I wanted to learn and I replied by saying ' I want to learn how to create an environment where the Spirit can teach and testify to everyone in the room'. For the most part I have learnt how to do that, but somewhere along the line and somewhere in between knowing nothing about the scriptures to feeling pretty comfortable defending the faith strapped with a leather bound quad standard works, I have stumbled and made the mistake of thinking that I am THE teacher and have forgotten my humble desire at the start of my mission. Pride manifests in so many ways. Thankfully repentance is available to all.
This week I got up in fast and testimony meeting. A sister had said that she love the fact that our sins are forgiven when we bear testimony of the Gospel. I said that I used to believe that missionaries were these sinless, 'one step from being exalted beings who never made mistakes, hence the shimmering glow that so readily had about them. But now I realise that it is because we bear testimony ALOT and so the gift of repentance is granted unto us continually allowing the Holy Ghost to give us that humbly recognizable spiritual sheen.
We had some wonderful miracles last week, one of them has been the answer to so man prayers me and Elder Johnson have uttered. We had forgotten to print something at the chapel, I was really annoyed I'd forgotten to do it as (despite pre mission habits) I don't tend to forget things now. So we arrived at the chapel and a member approached us and told us that a YSA had turned up to institute who hadn't been to church in over 9 years, 'could you go and speak to him'. We met him and I commended him on just walking back through the chapel doors as I knew full well how hard that can be. He was such a lovely guy. We felt inspired to show a mormon message with him. We found that a new one had been posted, we had not seen it and neither had he. We agreed to watch it for the first time together and the first line of the whole video was 'For 25 years I wandered' the man i was sat next to had also been wandering for 25 years! The video then continued to mirror some of the experiences that he had had and it brought about a great spiritual experience in him. After he assured us that his story wasnt quite as rock 'n' roll as the video, we prayed together and as we did it was clear that buddy was being re acquainted with his heavenly friend. We set up to teach him this week. We have since found out that he has never been baptized and so the miracle investigator we have been praying literally walked into our life. All this time I've been worrying about how we are going to replenish our teaching pool with solid new investigators and the Lord just patiently waits for me to realise that he has got it covered. I love being a missionary.
Me and Elder Johnson are getting along great. He is one of the most genuinely good people I have ever met, I don't think he has ever had a bad thought. He isn't naive though and I am teaching him how to drive so it's all fun and games.
I hope you all have a great week!
Hugs and Handshakes,
Elder Nolan
