Trial of faith comes before blessings

Well this week has been a tough one. I would be willing to say that it has been one of the hardest weeks of my mission. We were really excited and everything after the general conference and everything, and we had really made the decision that we are going to be baptizing every week now. We have increased our desire to do so, and decided we were going to go out and work as hard as possible to put our faith into accion and see the results.

Regarless of our efforts this week, everything went opposite of what we were expecting. All week long appointment after appointment just fell all day long. We had 3-4 plans every hour, and somehow we had days that we would go through every single one, and they would all fall through. Days where we taught only one lesson, and did probably 40-50 contacts. Even the contacting was harder than ever. We had more people just walk past us, and reject us this week than ever before. It was really as if some unseen force was at hand working against us in this week. We worked as hard as we possibly could, and honestly we have been exhausted most of the week. Some days it got to the point that we felt as if we would collapse when we got in the door. I feel like I worked harder this week than any other single week in my mission. Regardless of all our efforts, we had absolutely nothing to show for our work. It was really hard for me to understand why when we were so excited to work, and had the desire to baptize, why everything would go so bad like that.

Through meditating and studying, I came to realize something very important out of this whole week. The Lord cannot give us true miracles, until AFTER the trial of our faith. If we really want to see miracles as great as we find in the scriptures, we have to be tried, as were the prophets and missionaries of the scriptures. I really feel like God tried me in every aspect of the word this week. Physically, mentally, spiritually, and any other way that is possible, we have just been exhausted in all of the above this week. I really realize now that we should consider ourselves blessed to recieve such great trials as these, that God sees us fit to be tried and tested, and become a better person. I really like a scripture in the Book of Mormon, I think it's in Helaman. It is talking about nephi after he had been preaching, and got rejected. It says something like "Blessed art thou Nephi, becuase thou hast preahed the gospel unwearingly to this people." I hope that God could say the same thing to us this week of our work.

We also had interviews this week. Since I am district leader, I had to go last in the whole district, and it was a pretty good interview. We talked about my companion, and the District, and then he talked about how I am feeling and the conference as well. He told me to really focus on helping my district get a testimony of the Book of Mormon.

My district the past couple weeks has been having a lot of trouble as far as success goes, and this last Tuesday we had a really good District Meeting. The results were miraculous honestly. Although I didn't see the fruits of my labors in my own area, I am really glad to see that the district is doing a lot better. There was a huge increase in most of the key indicators in the week, and all the companionships (besides us) did a lot better this week.

This week, I don't know if we will keep having to be tested, but regarless of what happens, and how everything goes, we will just keep working our hardest until we see the results that we need in our work. I know that the Lord will bless us sooner or later if we keep being diligent, and keep asking in faith.

Elder Griffin