Story time. Saturday night Elder Peterson and I were discussing the silly little things satan tries to distract us with and we came to some conclusions. The first being that satan always tempts us with the same silly things. The second being that he always does it around the same time of day and in the same situation. Because of this, we have the ability to look forward and prepare for any temptations that he may try to bombard us with. As I pondered on this subject I thought it would be a good idea to change the iPad password as a reminder to always be preparing for the next moment. I did just that and went to sleep. The next morning my alarm went off and I tried to unlock my iPad... and I had completely forgotten my passcode. Here is the deal, after 9 failed attempts at unlocking a missionary iPad, it wipes all data and information on the iPad. Notes, PDF's, Pictures, Gospel Library... and it did not take me long to get to 8 attempts. I tried many different variations of what I was pretty certain the password was based on, thinkahead, lookahead, thinkforward, lookforward, beready, prepare... other stuff. I was panicking. We prayed, and pondered, and prayed again. I just could not remember! At the end of the day we were sitting in our room as Elder Peterson wrote in his journal. Randomly he looked up at me and said, "plan ahead." Immediately I knew what he was talking about. He was simply thinking about his future and "planning ahead" and it hit him! We had to wait till the next morning to try it out because we wanted to make sure that there were no other options. We called the mission office and they let us know that if I couldn't remember the password, I would just need to wipe the iPad and start over. At this point it was the worth the risk. We entered in each letter 1 by 1... p-l-a-n-a-h-e-a-d... then I re-entered it just to make sure I did it right. I pushed done and... IT WORKED!!!!!! My iPad truly has 9 lives, and we saved it right on the last one, but only through personal revelation. God loves us and if our desires are righteous, he will make a way.
Other miracles, one night we prayed to know where to go. I felt a prompting to go tracting, Elder Peterson had the names of a member family come to his mind, Jeff and Maria. We put two and two together and went tracting on Jeff and Maria's street, got a referral from another member and got a referral for a less-active at the end of the street who is in need of service this week! God sends us two by two for a reason.
Around 8:00 in Montana, everyone goes inside and gets ready for bed, or some other form of relaxation, but God has asked us to be out till 9:00, so we do it. As we walking home this week at about 8:50 we saw a man out on his porch. We talked to him and found out he was a less-active! He was so willing to have us come over. His name is Bradley and he is such a cool man, we have high hopes for his future progression.
Sometimes you just have to have a list of people you could go visit and then pray about it. We prayed over a list of potential investigators and felt a prompting to go visit some investigators that we believed had moved and were intending to drop. We knocked on the door and no one was home, but we knew God had sent us there for a reason so we knocked the other doors on the street. No one was interested till the last house, when a young man named Sam saw us approaching and he came out to talk to us! He told us most of his friends were Mormons. He was so willing to listen and have us come back! He gave us his address, phone number and set up an appointment with us for this Thursday. We are so excited, we have heard nothing but good from his friends in the ward. Always knock the last door.
Another night it was getting late and we felt a prompting to send a facebook message to a young man, Ron. I personally do not like doing Facebook messaging unless we have to, but God told us to do this one. It turns out that it was an answer to prayer and from what he tells us it was one of the most powerful spiritual answer he has received in his life. He was really seeking for guidance and we messaged him at the right time. He just recently moved to Billings, but the Billings missionaries will be teaching him. We had only met him two times before this. God knows his children, he knows what they need, listen and act.
God blesses you when you knock that last door or stay out for that last ten minutes.
I'm sorry, that's all I have time for. I love you all.
Love,
Elder Thomas
Blodgett Canyon hike
Zone Leadership Conference
Love Montana
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