Elder Ed Plothow: The Work is Slowly Moving Forward

Well another week has gone by. The work is progressing, ever so slowly, but it is progressing. Sometimes in missionary work we have to have "spiritual eyes', aka look at the long term perspective. Because sometimes the day to day work feels like you are going no where but in reality you are moving forward. So right now things are going slowly. But don't worry I am still happy and loving things, just things are slow. The biggest ray of light is one of our new investigators. He is a boss. He didn't come to church yesterday, and I am not sure why, but he is still awesome. We met him Thursday and pretty much the whole time he just talked about his faith. He has some things to work on, but we are confident that he will progress. There was a big get together with all his neighbors and they were all telling him to drink and he said, "nope". And he said it killed the mood cause he is the leader of all his friends. He says he prays everyday. He also talked about before that he was hiding and avoiding us and really didn't want to learn, but we persisted. And he was like, "Don't you ever get tired, doing this all day?" And pretty much just praising us for all the work we do every single day, and all our effort. We meet him at night and once he saw us in the morning proselyting and realized that this is an all day, every day thing. And it was nice to be appreciated, and to see someone truly change their life and repent. It is amazing knowing that if he would have continued on the path he was on he would have had a hard life, and minimal if any happiness between him and his wife. And it was so amazingly awesome just taking our message and our teaching for what it really is. Precious and valuable! Wednesday we had a hard morning. Two investigators right after each other went really bad, and they didn't believe that there was a God and super hard hearted. One of them prayed and didn't feel anything (cause he has a rock hard heart of unbelief). So that was hard, but Thursday night we met our good investigator and it just made everything else worth it. We go around giving out free diamonds and most people refuse to take it, or take it and throw it away, it is so awesome to see those who treat it like a diamond. But he isn't married and living with someone, and he said maybe in march or feb they will have enough, so I won't see him get baptized but I don't even care, just knowing that he has changed his life and has faith in God is enough.

We have another investigator. He was a contact and he said that when he prays he feels happy inside and that his problems are somehow solved. His parents are dead and really wants to see them again. We taught him the pos. And he committed to be baptized on November 23rd. I hope it turns out. So right now he is the closest guy to baptism.

We have another investigator whose wife has been a member for a year, and has been trying to quit smoking and drinking for about a year, and says he is finally ready to quit, so we are teaching him. He is a little frustrating. But hopefully he can progress. He came to church yesterday so that is good.

There are now two old Cambodians ladies who love Elder Asay and me. They were cutting wood and we went and helped them for fifteen minutes, and now they love us. :) They said we can come back and teach them but we will probably give to the sisters cause we can't teach girls.

Wednesday night there was a devotional we were able to go to. And Elder Snow, the head of church history, and Elder Wong, the first person ever to speak in his native language spoke. It was great. Afterwards he gathered the missionaries together and gave us a pump up talk. They talked about John six, and Jesus said, "Will you also leave me?" Peter answered, "whom else would we go? " And it is true. Right now I am doing exactly what God wants me to do. "What else compares to this? What else would I do for these two years, that could possible be better than this."

We are contacting a lot, giving a lot of blessings, and getting about 20 lessons a week. We are teaching a lot of new people, and dropping a lot of new people.