Agency.....

This week has been hard. I will have to say that I spent a lot of time on my knees figuring out what the reason is for this amazing week. We spent a lot of time walking to houses and having people cancel or claim that they were to busy and for us to come back another time. I will admit there were many rocks thrown while we were walking away or many stops at a store to get ice cream. Truly there was a lesson to be learned from this whole thing, and when I figured it out that is when I found the most successful day in the week.

So the subject of this Email is "Agency..." that is only for two families. I am not sure if you all remember the family from last week's email and another family that we found of 8. They all seemed super promising but due to the "busy" times of the week we were unable to meet with the family of 8, but were able to meet with Kauni and her family (family from last weeks email). We went and talked with them and came to find out they did not have interest in being baptized...that was very hard for me to take in and accept, that prayed so much and fasted so much for that family and were not able to help them. Although I did receive a comforting feeling that it was only my job to show them the way and that someone else will come through to guide them down that path. We are still able to baptize their son! We still are planning his date to be baptized.

Other than that this week has had one other amazing experience. After one of our days of no one being home or not busy we went walking. I decided to go down a road I have never been down before. We ended up at a house where a man accepted us and we started talking. Comes to find out that his sons had died in a way that he still has not been able to accept. So we decided to talk about the Plan of Salvation. He stopped Elder Vele as he was teaching about spirit paradise and prison. Then taught the whole lesson again and finished it. We find out that he believes everything we do and knows everything in our church...but he doesn't quite grasp all of it. We are going back tomorrow so we can help him understand everything and help receive all of the blessings that he can in this life.

This week truly has helped me to realize the importance of listening to the spirit. I know that without us being receptive to the spirit we are totally unable to do this work. The spirit is extremely important to this work and he will help us so long as we look to him in the hard times. Always look for new people to share this gospel with. You never know who you will find.

Thank you for all of your love and prayers. Continue in faith and look for opportunities to share you testimony!

Alofa atu

Elder Bethea