June 20th

This last week wasn't too crazy. Deborah, our less active friend is doing awesome and she came to church last week and loved it but she didn't make it yesterday. It's been great to work with her and she how she's been getting closer to God, and how it's changing her life. Other than that, things are pretty dry right now. We decided to drop Elijah because we don't think he's ever going to go anywhere. Then we tried to set up an appointment with Jessica, and she responded that she was just going to stick with the Bible because she knows for sure that it's the word of God and she doesn't feel the same way about the Book of Mormon. It's sad because she's had multiple spiritual experiences with the Book of Mormon. We had a lesson with Sean and the ward mission leader from the YSA. We're handing him off, so there's another investigator gone. Elder Huffman wants to give Jordon to the YSA too, but I don't want to, so we'll see what Jordon wants. We haven't been able to get in contact with Joshua since we gave him the Book of Mormon in Yoruba. We gave his number and address to our Nigerian friend and he's going to try and get in contact with him. So we basically have no investigators right now... It's alright though. Things have been good despite the lack of success. I feel like my whole mission the Lord has been teaching me that what I want, is not necessarily what he wants me to do. It's been a tough lesson to learn but I think I'm starting to get it. I haven't been able to have the success I haven't had very many baptisms on my mission and I don't think I will get too much more. I used to think that if I would just work hard and be as obedient as I could, then the Lord would bless me with investigators and baptisms, but I've slowly been learning that that's not necessarily how it works *cough cough* Sallisaw Oklahoma. You can't really buy success from the Lord with obedience and hard work. I used to think that God hated me because I couldn't work hard enough and be obedient enough for Him to bless me with outward success because I've never felt in my entire mission that I've been a successful missionary. But really, this is His work and not mine. The whole time Heavenly Father was trying to teach me how to trust in Him, and I'm still getting there. Heavenly Father also works on the inside and just because you don't see any outward success doesn't mean that God isn't getting work done, especially on you. The Lord has blessed me to serve with and around some awesome people. Honestly, if it wasn't for my friend Elder Nau and my mom's powerful testimony, I would've gone home a long time ago. There's been a couple of times where I have prayed and asked Heavenly Father if it was alright if I went home early but every time the answer has been no, so I know I still have things to learn on the mission. Even then, I think I won't realize all the things that the Lord has done for me and taught me on my mission until I've been home for a long time. So here's to the next 3 months I guess.

Elder Naegle