I've been a lot happier while on my mission. I've found lots of joy that comes from the "little" things in life. You don't have to listen to cool music to be happy or drink beer or do whatever people do nowadays to be happy. I don't do any of those things and I'm the happiest I've ever been! It's cool.
If we apply the principles of the doctrine of Christ, we can change our desires to be more similar to the Lord's. This happens through the power of the atonement. If you live the gospel, you are happy. We should never let our agency take over. One cool thing about living the doctine of Christ is that it brings OUR will in line with the Lord's will. Plus we are blessed as we do these things. I think I've been blessed a lot.
Elder Cobbley and I have been working pretty hard. We've been having lots of success. We have been inviting more people to be baptized and now we have three baptismal dates set with people.
There was a cool thing that happened yesterday. Each week we do a planning session for the whole week ahead of us. We set goals in faith and make our plans to achieve those goals. So last Thursday we set a goal to find 4 new investigators. By the time Saturday ended, we had found four new investigators but when we planned for Sunday, we didn't want to set a goal to find zero investigators so we planned to tract so we could find one.
So we were tracting yesterday and were having a hard time talking to people. (There were some NFL games on that people are more interested in.) We were just walking down the street trying to feel where we should go to accomplish our goal. We each had a prayer in our hearts looking for direction to find this person. As we walked down another block, we saw a car in a driveway that stuck out to both of us. Elder Cobbley jokingly said "This house will be our new investigator." So we knocked on the door. A large, old man came out and immediately knew who we were. He called us his "Mormon friends." As we talked to him, we found that he had almost joined the church when he was younger but didn't because his Grandpa, who he was living with at the time wouldn't let him. We prayed with him and we have an appointment to come back and teach him.
.....And we were able to meet the goal we had set for that day.
I think it is a cool story. There is a lot to be learned from it too.
Love,
Elder Shumway
