Week Sixteen

Dear Family, Friends, and random people reading my blog on the Internet. 

How are you all doing? I'm doing great. Zero complaints about life right now...I try never to complain even if I have something to complain about, but right now I literally have nothing to complain about. Last week was transfers and I'm still with Elder Huskey here in Dwarka. He goes home after this transfer so my next transfer I'll be with a different companion. It's almost guaranteed he will be an India missionary, but I will actually probably stay in Dwarka and train him to the area before I leave. So it looks like I will be here in Dwarka until December, starting my first 6 months here. I actually like that and want to move around as little as possible in my mission. I like being in one place and making it my home ha-ha. I hope one of those places is in Mumbai though, that would be legit.

This week we continued to work with less active members and trying to find new investigators. It's been a rough couple of weeks, but we think we are about to get some good investigators who will show potential. Everyone has the potential to change and to become a member of the church and to receive all the blessings that come with that, but very few are willing to make that kind of a commitment. We need to find those who are prepared now to make those commitments. Kavita is still doing well, but we are in the process of trying to figure out when her baptism will be...She is due to have her baby on the 8th of October...but we don't think she is ready to be baptized on the 2nd like we originally thought. Her English and understanding still needs to be a little better so that she will stay active and endure to the end. That's going to be tough to tell her, and then after she has the baby we are going to be concerned about how much she can come to church and when her next available baptism date could be... so we stuck between a rock and a hard place right now. Wow that sounded like an Idaho saying...that was weird. 

 I don't know what much else to report on this week. I am feeling better and my MTC companions are here finally, but I still haven't seen them. We are spending so much time as missionaries trying to prepare the branches here to become wards and a stake in Delhi. It is such a struggle...there is so much work to be done. I really took for granted all the people back home who fulfilled their callings and for how smoothly our stake and wards run. This place is still learning how to become like that...they don't exactly understand the culture of the church. Not many people fulfill their callings, zero people do home teaching, and very often people just don't show up to church when they were supposed to speak in sacrament meeting. It's hard to see, but we are doing what we can to correct the mistakes with love, especially when someone starts chanting and praising their Hindu god in testimony meeting. That was weird...and awkward to have to walk up and stop them because the branch presidency didn't know what to do. It's just a different world here, but people are doing their best to live the gospel and become closer to Christ. It's very impressing to see these people change their lives and their culture for the truth. 

This week I have been thinking about Sacrifices and how necessary it is for us to make sacrifices. I have had to make many sacrifices to be here on my mission. Some of those include time and money, schooling and dating. The hardest one is being away from family and football of course. I also miss driving and chewing gum, I miss swimming and I miss my music. Man do I miss my playlist with all my good songs. But I needed to make these sacrifices to get the most out of my two years of service, without these sacrifices I wouldn't be truly serving the Lord. I wouldn't be learning what I need to learn to become better. A sacrifice is the giving up of worldly things and living your life more in harmony with the will of the Lord. It is extremely hard sometimes to make these sacrifices, and sometimes we don't want to...but without them, we wouldn't learn what it means to love the Savior. Joseph Smith, who I love so much and is my favorite person to teach about, once said that "a religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has the power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation." That is a big statement, and I believe it. Our Church, the True Church, requires a lot of sacrifice, but because of that sacrifice we have the power and the faith needed for Salvation. We are asked to pay tithing, to live the word of wisdom, to fulfill and magnify callings, to go home teaching, to have family home evening, to read our scriptures everyday and pray all the time, we are to do temple and family history work, and don't forget about the young men and women who serve missions and give up years of their lives to serve in this work. This church demands a great amount from us, even to the point where we covenant with God to give all our time, talents, and efforts to the work of the Lord. It's not easy, but without it, we aren't the True Church. We wouldn't be the Lord's church; we would just be a bunch of people who barely believe in what they say they believe in...pretty much no different than the rest of the religions in the world.

But we are asked to sacrifice...and just like in the hymn "Praise to the Man" it tells us that Sacrifice brings forth the blessings of Heaven. If we want the blessings of Heaven we have to sacrifice, and the blessings from sacrifice are always greater than the sacrifice itself. Jesus Christ himself paid the ultimate sacrifice; give back to him by sacrificing your time, talents and anything else you can, to move the work along. I think of Joseph Smith and the sacrifices he went through for us and for the Book of Mormon. No one would sacrifice as much as The Savior and Joseph Smith did, for no reason. And your sacrifices won't be for nothing, I can promise you that. Give yourself to the Lord, just a little more each day, and see if your life gets better. 

The sacrifices you make to be a better disciple and a better person won't go unnoticed, and they won't go without blessings. It's a privilege to be a part of a Church that demands so much from us. Do your part, we are all a team here, and we're on the winning team. 

Until next week

Love, 

Elder Armstrong