Today is my 19th birthday, and for that reason I'm going to the temple! Yay.
Romans 12:12 says, "Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation;continuing instant in prayer." I think it's interesting that these three things are spoken of together. To be patient is to have hope that things will be better, and being willing to accept the Lord's timing on blessings we receive. But how can we be patient if we're not
"continuing instant in prayer"? If we want to learn patience and become more patient, then we must humble ourselves before God and pray for His divine help in being patient. I know that for me, most of the time I must rely on God to be able to be patient through things; and even then I'm not as patient as I should be. But as I rely on Him and admit to my weakness without Him, it becomes easier and I am able to be more patient.
People often get on the trains just to sell stuff, and the most common thing is "Welches fruit snacks for a dollar". There was one guy today who was selling fruit snacks and stared at us a little bit as he walked by announcing his sale. He walked by us one more time and kindasmiles and announces, "What would Jesus do? Jesus would buy some Welches fruit snacks". We laughed, and he laughed, and then he moved on to the next train. Certainly a New York moment
Elder Hill and I have been seeing so many miracles lately. It's simply because we're putting ourselves out there and just talking with people all the time. My companions and I haven't always done this in the pastbecause we are ASL missionaries, and we figured we should always sign so we could get more practice, and so it would be obvious that we know ASL. And that's a good thing for sure, but now we don't feel that it's the best thing. Because neither of us are deaf, we feel that we shoulds take advantage of being in NYC and just talk to people all the time.We had Elder Bennet from the Seventy visit our mission, and this is something he talked about. He said, "If you talk to everyone, the Lord will place people in your path. You may not see the connection of your actions and the reward, but it will happen. Those people you talk today not know (deaf) people who are interested, and they themselves may not even want to learn more. But the Lord will see how hard you're trying and bless you while blessing others by allowing them theopportunity to hear the Gospel." At first I thought, "Talking to hearing people on the trains probably won't yield more deaf people forus to talk with, but it can't hurt to try." Now I look back, and we've met more deaf people in these last weeks than the rest of my missioncombined. And we have two people scheduled for baptism this month! That hasn't happened on my mission yet. It's so awesome, and we're so excited to see these people change their lives.
Quotes:
"Imma be honest, I actually wouldn't mind having more than one wife."
"You realize that you just asked for toilet paper for your birthday, right?"
"Hey, you guys are Nazis".
"You used to call me on my videophone..."
"You learned that you could talk to white people without them being
scared of you."
"In all ways, be wise and mature in your conduct"."I'm just like Batman except I suck at fighting, and I'm poor."
Scriptures:
Romans 12:12
Proverrbs 14:29
Mosiah 23:21
Alma 5:26
Keep on Truckin
-Elder Daniel West
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| I came home to this from Elder Holloway |
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| Birthday gift from Elder Holloway |
Subway entertainment on the way to the Temple
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