May 9, 2016

Hello everyone from the land of the many slot machines! There has been so much rain lately, which is extremely weird because it's Nevada and there has been a ton of rain already this year. And because of that, everyone was smart enough to NOT go outside so we could talk to them. Although, it's still Reno. I've heard many times that if you don't like the weather just wait ten minutes and it'll change. That held true for most of this week. It went something like this: Rain, sun, rain, sun, rain, hail, rain, sun, rain and sun, rain. all in the course of an hour or two.

Despite the really bad weather (for Reno) we actually had some pretty cool miracles this week. Probably the most prominent one happened as such: on Sunday, the lesson in Elders' quorum was something to the effect of noticing the tender mercies of the Lord. One brother sharing an experience in his in-laws family about how they had a tragedy in the family and to help him deal with it, his father-in-law started a tender mercy journal, where he would record all of the tender mercies that he experienced that day. So my mind was open to seeing those tender mercies throughout the week.

There was one day we had 5 lessons set up and all of them fell through but one, typical missionary work right? But in that one we were able to set Andy with a baptismal date of July 2nd! Too bad we'll pass him off to YSA... It's shown just how evident the tender mercies of the Lord can be. All you have to do is look for them and realize that there is no such thing as a coincidence. Nope, believe it or not, those little things that make you smile are directly from God. He makes it just evident enough so you notice it. People say that God works in mysterious ways, but really He works in a way that we can understand that it's him working. If God truly is all knowing and all powerful, which He is, and His entire purpose is to help us progress and become happier, there is no way that coincidences are real. I don't think I really noticed too many tender mercies until I came out here, and now all of a sudden they're everywhere. There was a time this week when we ran into a really anti-Mormon couple, no, we didn't do anything stupid, but it did discourage me a little. But immediately after we walked away, this one family with young kids drives by and says hi to us. I can't describe the emotion that came over me, and this explanation doesn't really do it justice. But It felt as though God Himself were telling us that everything's okay, and to keep on going, we were doing the right thing. That gave me a renewed hope and fervor for the work. Other than that, not much else happened this week. We worked hard, we gave our all, and that's all that matters.