Working with Members

This week was a good week. Miri is growing on me. I tried hard to get to know the members and area better this week. Considering theres only about 20-30 active members it was not a difficult task to get to know most of them. This week i had a faith building experience. It was thursday, a rough day. Miri is a lot tougher area. I can compare it to sibu a bit. But i am trying to keep my faith high and strong to show god that i trust that he is preparing people here in miri. On thursday we did our normal weekly planning then got out to work. Everyone we talked to rejected us. Every person we tried to reach out to turned their backs on us. I was put in a bad mood. It killed my faith and i didnt feel like trying anymore. We had an appointment that night scheduled for 8. It was a bit past 8 and he wasn't showing up. It was putting a cherry on top of the bad day. we called him to see if he was coming. He answered and it was hard to hear but we think we heard "i cant make it tonight" and then our phone died right after we heard that! So that was frustrating. I layed there on the church floor expressing my frustration to elder olsen. As i was sitting there complaining, the investigator walked in! It was a bit of a surprise. We then taught him one of the best lessons ive had on my mission. At the end of it we taught him how to pray and he just went straight into prayer not second guessing how to pray or what and offered a beautiful prayer. He was asking god to show him the truthfulness of the book of Mormon. As he was asking a loud and clear thought came into my head "Oh ye of little faith!" A laughed at myself on how god just slapped me in the face. That actually ended up building my faith. God does have people prepared. Thats a fact. Preach my gospel states that there are people prepared in each area or else we wouldnt be there! 

We had a cool miracle in working with one of our members this week. We decided to work in an area that is on the opposite side of miri from where we live. We have a way strong member who stays there and that area is highly Chinese populated. We told that member that we would be going up there to work for the day and she immediately responds with 6 referrals! Then we spent the day following her around to all of her friends houses that she wanted us to teach! Missionary work is so much easier, effective, and fun when things like that happen. Members are the best missionaries!

My companion was sick all day yesterday and today. I was able to do a lot of meditating as he rested. It was nice. He is still sick today so i dont know if we will get to do much for pday. Last week we went to the beach. We got coconuts from the trees and sipped on them while we relaxed. Then we went bowling then shopping.

K love you

k bye

Love,

Elder Schwemmer