The Master is Calling! : WEEK 5????

Dear family and friends,

I have been in the mission field for about 5 weeks now!! How time
flies. I wish that time would slow down a bit out here. I don't like
how quickly each day as a missionary passes by. Still so many people
to meet, so many people who need the gospel.

This has been a fabulous week! We had another exchange. This time,
Elder Tippetts from Sundance came to Newcastle. Elder Tippetts was
trained in Newcastle so he knows the area pretty well. We had a lot of
cool experiences. We got to teach Trent, our newly baptized member,
and we did a lot of Tracting. My area covers three little towns,
Upton, Osage, and Newcastle. Lately we've decided that we need to stop
focusing on Newcastle more than the other two cities. We don't have
too many members in Upton or in Osage so we do a lot of Tracting. This
last week we were Tracting in Osage and we walked past a house that we
had knocked on a few days before but no one had answered then and I
felt like I needed to knock again. As we walked down the street,
passing the house, we noticed that there was a large black dog sitting
on the porch where there had only been a cat before. It was barking
and bearing it's teeth but we both felt that we needed to go to that
house, but were both afraid to say so. We passed the house and moved
on, when we came back up the street on our way back I paused, looking
at the dog again, and said, "That's a good looking dog, but I don't
trust it," then continued to walk back to the truck. Elder Tippetts
stopped and jokingly said, "Do you trust God?" Not really expecting
anything to come out of it. I responded with a smile, "I will if you
do. Start walking, I'll follow." He laughed and then realized I was
being serious. We turned and slowly, apprehensively started walking
towards the gate. I stopped at the open gate looking at the nice
doggy... Big black thing with teeth and a loud bark. I knew we needed
to talk to these people. We stepped inside the gate, and the moment we
did, a shirtless man swung the door open. He looked at us both
critically for a second, laughed, said he'd go grab a shirt and shut
the door. We turned to each other and, in unison, said, "Faith!" While
he was gone, a woman reached outside and pulled the cute little (yeah
right) doggy inside. He came out to talk to us and was interested in
hearing our message. His name is Fabian. We gave him a brief summary
of the restoration, gave him a restoration pamphlet and bore our
testimony. He shared that he believed in God and that he loves us. He
also believes that Christ died for each one of us. Elder Tippetts felt
prompted to give him a Book of Mormon so he presented it to him and we
both bore our testimony on the Book of Mormon. The spirit was so
strong and Fabian was very solemn at the end. He said we could come
back but that it would have to be after this week because he was going
on a hunting trip. We are very excited to get back there.

Another amazing thing from this week was when we got to visit A
less-active member we have been teaching. He is a very good man and we
have really been trying to get him back to church. He knows he needs
to come but he hasn't had any motivation. This week our main goal was
to get to the bottom of his reasons for not coming. We knew we needed
to remain sensitive to the spirit if we wanted to get anywhere. We
basically abandoned our whole lesson. The spirit was so strong in
there and scriptures we never would have remembered on our own were
called to our memory. I think my favorite part of being a missionary
isn't only being able to help others come closer to Christ but it's
the opportunity to see them through his eyes. It's being able to feel
how much He loves them. He told us about someone in the church and how
they had wronged him and how being at the church brought that back to
his memory. I was able to testify to him that the same power that
allowed us to be forgiven of our sins would help us to forgive others.
That Christ didn't die for only us but for those that wronged us as
well. I gave him a promise, that as he actively attended church
weekly, that memory and those feelings would be completely wiped away.
That it would be as if it never happened. I cried, as usual haha. It
was a wonderful experience. He was there on Sunday. He gave a lot of
input in our gospel principles class. It was remarkable.

I love this gospel, I know it's true. I pray that you are all strong
in the faith, endure to the end. I love all of you.

Love,
Elder Thomas

Pictures:
When Elder Tippets steals your iPad.