Week 53

Man oh man this week has been full of crazy experiences!! I have knocked on SOO many doors this week its not even funny. Ha. And unfortunately we have no new investigators.

So way crazy experience.. We were on ex-changes with missionaries from Story City and we were tracting this apartment building. We knocked on this door and this lady answered the door and she said hold on one second. She went back into her apartment and got her boyfriend who kinda looked like Popeye the Sailor man. Haha he was pretty buff too! He started off by asking this crazy question that neither of us understood.. So we were like "sorry sir could you repeat the question?" And then, out of nowhere, he started to get super hostile!! He was acting like he was gonna try and beat us up and stuff, and making the stupidest comments in the world.. When he calmed down a little bit, he ended up letting us tell him about our beliefs, and we went on our way.. It was crazy!!

Sad story.. We ran into this awesome lady and explained our beliefs, and we had a super awesome conversation with her. She agreed with everything that we said, she was very excited as well. We gave her a Book of Mormon and she told us to call her in a couple days.. We were SO excited about it. We fasted for her and we included her in every prayer that we said. We gave it all we had. I was sure that a miracle was going to happen. We gave her a call and left a message and got nothing.. And we even went to her apartment and she would look through the eye hole thing on the door and walk away. It was last night, while i was praying, that i finally accepted that we weren't going to be able to teach her. I just broke down and started to cry. I kept on asking God why we couldn't teach her and why people were rejecting us.. I was so confused.. I did everything i could. Then all of the sudden a scripture popped into my head. 2 Nephi 2:27
Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself.
I had a warm and peaceful feeling come over me. It hit me that God could and would not take away the agency of this lady. He knew that i had suffered, and my heart was broken, but he comforted me and i knew that it would be ok. It was pretty cool...

i have gotta go!! I have no more time. I love you all.. So much. Thanks for the emails.. I haven't read them yet. But i will print them then read them. :) Thanks for everything!

Till Monday.
Love Elder Russell