Hey! This week was so awesome!!
Elder Uhlig is great! He cracks me up, he's just so funny. He's just golden. We found 31 new investigators this week, my feet have never blistered so hard, though they didn't bleed this week. Not yet. And I don't want to buy new shoes.
We have loads of people to meet up with this week (fingers crossed), and as of last Tuesday, Hou Lipeng accepted a baptismal date for May 9th. He is excited and he is just the happiest and the best. I love him. We are meeting with a few others and by weeks' end we should have a few more who have made that decision. The final weeks are definitely the hardest. But also the easiest. The Lord blesses us so much. Every time we leave, I ask Elder Uhlig and he asks me what our desires are. We have specific ones (teach somebody the Restoration, get 3 phone numbers, find a couple who will listen to us, etc.) and as we have these specific desires and take them to the Lord, He has granted them every time. Not once was one not fulfilled. Granted, we don't just wish and then expect it to happen. We hunt for couples, we talk to everyone, we take crazy leaps into a talk about the Restoration that started with the weather, we do everything in our power to accomplish those goals, even in desperation we won't go inside until they are met. And I am just now beginning to learn what it means that God grants unto men according to their desires. But how much do we desire it? Do we really desire what we ask for? We give our all to show that we do. But we know that it is all in His hands and all our success is dependent on His mercy, and I beat a stint of pride this week that crept up mid week. We are weak, very weak and very tired and very inadequate. But our Lord is powerful.
We were teaching a man this week who started by telling us he had looked into our church, said it's just a business church, blah blah, started talking about the First Vision and how Joseph Smith saw some saint or angel and how that couldn't be possible, and my blood started to boil, and I opened my mouth and cut him off (I rarely, if ever, do that here, especially because of the Serbian) and said, "God the Father and Jesus Christ did appear to Joseph Smith. I know that because the Holy Ghost has borne witness to me personally that it did happen, and I cannot deny a witness from God that I felt in my mind and in my heart." Tension was in the air, my heart was about to leap out of my chest, and then finally the man said "You speak from your heart. I respect that, and cannot argue with what you know." And then proceeded to talk about other things, but left our religion and Joseph Smith alone. Never in my mission have I felt the Spirit in such power and might, in a blazing fire that threatened to eat me up if I did not speak. It moved upon me in an undeniable way, and I am so grateful for it. And everything's changed since. My testimony feels so alive.
I had loads of scripture insights this week.
-Isaiah 52:12 is a legit scripture I read this week on a day that I was exhausted and feeling pretty discouraged. The last word in the verse has a footnote that changes "rearward" to "rearguard" Consider that with my fascination of the Greek stand at Thermopylae during the second Persian invasion. We all know the story, but there are details which are very powerful and thought provoking.
The Spartans who were selected to defend the pass were selected from and emergency call-up in which one could only be selected if he had a living son to carry his name, because this call-up came with only one duty: to stand and die. After a week of battle at the pass, when the Greek armies were compromised by a traitor revealing a back pass that destroyed their well-held position, King Leonidas dismissed the entire army to return to their city-states and "live to fight another day", as it were, while he alone with his remaining Spartans formed the rearguard. In that role, they stood and died so that the others could go free. The Savior as our Rearguard brought powerful strength to me that day, as I knew that no matter how hard the battle is on my end, it was His self-appointed duty to stand and die so I may go free.
When He was presented before the Jews and they cried for Barabbas to be released and Him killed, a powerful message was given. "bar-" means "son of" (ex. Simon bar-Jonas), and "abbas" you will readily recognize as the familial and dear term Christ used in the Garden of Gethsemane when He cried out "Abba, (papa, daddy)...take this cup from me..."
Bar-abbas, the sons and daughters of Father, go free and Christ takes the penalty in our stead.
Well that's all I'll share on my studies for this week.
I feel a surreal sense of leaving this place as I never have before. Even my flight away in the beginning to heal was not without promise to return, and I have never really left anybody here (Beograd twice, and every month for conference, I'm back in Podgorica, likely going back to Novi Sad for a baptism). But it's final. In 44 days, I will bid this place, these people, my home here that I know and love, (I can't remember a me that isn't here and Elder Hixon, that didn't have missionary work to do, meetings to attend and results to find) a final goodbye. While I'm anxious and excited for the new life that awaits....I can't help but hurt seeing it so close. My mom asked in her letter for me to consider the Savior's final weeks? She asked if I thought He might have had stuff that He wanted to cram in? Did He want to just get it done or did He want his mortal experience to last a little longer? Perhaps He had the same mortal pangs of leaving the people He loved here. I've never contemplated that, but I feel that perhaps I can relate to Him, or rather, that He can relate to me, in this. Yes, the next part is better, but it does pain my heart to leave them here. So the last few weeks must have a desperation, a drive to do everything the Father asks of me, and to serve these people with every last bit I have. And I will.
Please pray for this country.
I love all of you!!
Elder Hixon
