Week 12 It Is Always Worth It! / 10 May

Our stake held a groundbreaking ceremony for a stake center building on May 15th. Our stake offices have been in an office building in town, while the wards in our stake have been sharing our building (three congregations), and farming out one of our wards to another stake's building. It is an exciting time for all of us and we will be excited to have our own building for stake conferences and other activities.

Dear Family,

What's happened since Wednesday? A lot of walking, of course, but I think there is one amazing experience that really sticks out to me.

Since Thursday Elder Hemous and I have been working through the former investigators in the area book. We organized them accoring to areas, and then streets within the areas, and since then we have been going through and visiting all these people. We visited a former investigator who lives on a street called St.Cuthberts Rd, and who unfortunately wasn't even there at the time. But then we felt impressed to go back a different way to visit our next appointment. We took a really curvy path through a park, and Elder Heumos saw this man walking down a path a little ways down. It would have been easy to just ignore him but Elder Heumos yelled "Hey!" at the top of his voice and got this man to stop. We approached him and told him who we were, then straightaway told him there was a living prophet on the earth today, who had been called by God. He stopped and had this weird look on his face, which was frighteningly similar to the "Staunch Catholic Hatred" face we get a lot. I thought we were going to get told off again, but he just asked "Wait... you're telling me, there's a prophet, alive, on the earth today?" to which we replied with a happy yes. I asked him "How important would that be to you if you could find out that was true?" He just was silent for a couple seconds, but then exclaimed "That would be amazing!"

It was indeed amazing, as we taught him about the Restoration right there on the street. He seemed skeptical but opened up once we explained how he could know the truth for himself through prayer. He understood completely that he needed to ask God for himself (which, to be honest, is not something that happens over here) and accepted a return appointment as well as the challenge to come to Church on Sunday. Unfortunately he ended up not coming to church on Sunday because of his wife being in the hospital, but we talked to him on the phone a few times that day and are visiting him tomorrow. Of course, my more experienced companion is afraid to get his hopes up, but I always think to myself "What's the point of having hopes if you can't get them up? And of course, if we get let down, I always have the Atonement to rely on so that I don't discouraged. Missionary work is tough work but it is always worth it.

And how the time is absolutely flying by. I can't believe it's already been almost 3 months. When I think about the almost 3 years in Israel, and how that went by like nothing at all, I can already see the end of my mission coming ever closer, and I don't like the feeling. I can already understand how the missionaries who are going home must feel. It's probably the most depressing point in your mission when you realise you're going home. It's so important to make the most of every second of this time we're given.

The Stake Center groundbreaking is this Saturday. Wow. That is incredibly hard to think about, that there might be a finished Forest Grove Stake Center when I get back. And maybe even a fully established pig pen. Who knows?

Well I've got to go. Until next week-

Love,

Elder Alsop