Elder Bobby Crofts

November 9, 2015

"Let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power" D&C 123:17

So our little sector got bigger this week. The sisters from our ward got transferred to go be with another sister who´s companion had gone home. So all of huanhuali is now OURS :) We have had a lot to do and are trying to strengthen our relationships with the members, converts, and investigators from the other sector.

So Carmen doesn’t really understand very well. We explained the law of chastity to her and she got a little offended and says that "nobody does that anymore". We are going to have to go REALLY slow with her if we want to help her be baptized. Hopefully it works out.

Last Monday we got together as a zone. Elder Avila had his birthday on Thursday so I decided I would try a cake recipe that I had found. I made an AWESOME German chocolate cake for him. I thought it was super tasty and everyone seemed to like it. So the kitchen life has been going well!

Humberto moved here from the north for work. He has other family members that live in another nearby ward but it doesn’t seem like they are too interested. We have asked him but I will keep persisting. He also doesn’t know very many people that live nearby because he is always working. He works with a less active and we are going to have a family night with the both of them and an awesome active family tonight. Hopefully, the less active has family members that aren’t members so we can baptize them.

So one day we had gone through almost all of our plans and had not had much success. We decided to say a prayer to know where to go. I got a prompting and we acted upon it, nothing happened. Another prompting, the same result. It made me think about Nephi and his brothers. They went back to Jerusalem to get the plates like the Lord had directed and nothing happened. Then Nephi felt prompted to give Laban their riches in return for the plates. As a result, they lost their riches AND didn’t obtain the plates. I am sure Nephi thought that his plan was what the Lord was guiding him to do but they weren’t the results they had expected. His first attempts may not have worked out, but he had learned to be obedient to the promptings which God had given him. It had prepared him for the last attempt that he made. Later that day, he was "led by the spirit, not knowing beforehand the things that he should do" which eventually led him to find Laban who was unconscious and drunk in the street. In my opinion, I think Laban was drunk because he was celebrating the riches that he had stolen from Nephi and his brothers earlier that day. In every way possible, the previous failures helped them to be ready to act when it would really matter. We may not have had any big miracles, but we are learning to follow the spirit and get to where the Lord needs us.

The truth is I am doing great but it has been hard to really keep our enthusiasm high and work with everything. Elder Avila had never been in a sector more than 2 changes and was starting to lose hope for our area (good thing we got the other part of huanhuali!) I try to talk with everyone and I am keeping my spirits high but sometimes. I think I need to try to make the daily work more fun. I don’t have a problem with working my butt off and getting to the pension exhausted, but it seems like Elder Avila really depends upon me to keep his spirits high. So hopefully I can be a good example and get things going!

Hoping for a better week and lots of success! Love you all

Love,

Elder Crofts

I saw this tennis court the other day and almost died! My companion wasn't really interested in the idea so I imagine that the great idea will have to wait..haha