Trials - A wonderful tender mercy!

Area: Roi Et

Companion: Elder Wilso
December 2, 2013

Hello!

We had mission conference and it was way awesome some of the highlights were that the member of the Asia area presidency was Elder Larry Wilson yep you guessed it Elder Wilson's uncle. It was so inspiring all about using the Book of Mormon and reading it with everybody and helping our investigators and converts have like reading mentors that get together and read the Book of Mormon together. Sis Wilson taught really powerfully on the atonement it was so good I gained some way good new perspective. Our district did a special musical number One Voice like the one off Moroni's Quest at Abinadi. I soloed the first line which was a bit nerve racking and Elder Vandenberghe played the cello to accompany us it sounded amazing it turns out he is cello protégé! Also for lunch we had a real Thanksgiving dinner complete with mashed potatoes, gravy, turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce! I could have cried! It was so good! I haven’t eaten any of those things since I left and they tasted so amazing! We also got some great presents including neon safety vests that we get to wear at night! I totally look like some special ops cop! and best of all a cd from the BYU men’s chorus it’s like all accapella hymns including my favourites Savior Redeemer of my Soul and that Joy to the World song off of the Christmas Liken the Scriptures movie. 

Also we had a Turkey Bowl on P-Day with half our zone it was way fun the sprinklers on the field turned on like 15 mins in but we kept on playing it was waaayyy fun we just played two hand touch except there was one time I forgot and football instinct took control and I sacked my companion like knocked his tag off brought him to the ground hit my companion oops! We have also started getting up early and playing basketball every morning for like 45 minutes! Way fun! I’m losing weight pretty steady I really want to get back down to the 185 I was back in the day.

Right now in our area and our zone we are going through quite the trial and testing period. I feel like I am honestly working harder and smarter than I ever have on my mission I am guided by the spirit and obedient and it seems that no matter what Elder Wilson and I do it doesn’t work out. Our area is kind of in a crisis stage where we find amazingly prepared people who want to be baptized that we might once and then we never see them again. Another weird bit is with each one of those people as soon as they meet with us their lives just get slammed by way hard trials and opposition, we have learned that we need to use the How to Begin Teaching bullet 9 and warn them that as they meet with us it’s going to be hard. Cause its crazy I have never seen it like this with one woman the week after we met twice and then after that her aunt was struck gravely ill she was robbed and had to harvest like 10 acres of rice by herself cause her cousins peaced. We were just like whoah, what is going on? and it’s like that for like all of our investigators right now. Across the zone everybody is having similar struggles and we are all really struggling finding daters and getting people to attend church. I had a really comforting moment this morning as I prayed for beginning personal study. I was just filled with a sense of gratitude for these trials and hard times of the past couple weeks. I realized that it was the answer to my prayers that God would change me and change my countenance and make me into the man that He would have me be. I am so glad that God loves me and trusts me enough to test me and make me better. That right now he is my pointing out all my weaknesses and shortcomings so that I can fix them with his help. It was a wonderful tender mercy. I had been really looking down deep and trying to figure out what I was doing wrong and how I could fix it. In the past month I feel like I have learned and grown so much as I have cut out the dross in my life. I feel like now what the Lord expects of me is to endure well through continuing to improve and overcome my imperfections while trusting that the Lord will see me through and at the end of the day He will change me into the man and the missionary that He sees in me. I know that on my own I will make of me only a smudge but He will make of me a masterpiece.

I love you all so much! Thank you for your love and prayers it means the world to me!

Elder Cahoon

P-Day Turkey Bowl