Week #56 Lessons from Lehi

Hi everybody! We made it to August! My last August on the mission. That's somewhat weird but cool at the same time. It has almost been a year since I came to Germany. After 9 months there and almost 3 months in Austria, it has been quite a pleasant journey. Hard at times but nothing has brought more joy. 

This week I had 2 exchanges. The first was with Elder Fairbanks. He is in the same MTC group as Elder Buss. We did some finding in the rain and also visited some less actives. We had a good time together and talking about the mission life. It is weird that they will be here in 2020. For some reason, I forgot it was 2018 and the 2 years did not add up. It is so cool to see new missionaries start this new experience. It gives me a lot of memories of my time in Ulm. It was hard but I would not go without it. 

Another exchange was with Elder Konietz, one of our zone leader. We went to a lesson that fell through but this girl from Ukraine sat down and talked with us. She was pretty cool and she will be moving to Wien soon. She will work with the International elders but she won't be here for 2 months or so. It was still a cool miracle after a fallen out lesson.

That happened to me again later last week. We had an appointment fall through when we thought we needed it the most. I had prepared a lot for it but that did not stop it from falling through. Elder Buss asked if we could go finding on Stephansplatz, a place I do not usually go. We tried it out and met this cool German guy named Paul. He expressed interest in the Book of Mormon but he left for Munich so we referred him today and hopefully he gets a Book of Mormon soon. We also met another guy named Baris. He has a hard time with religion but he was open to what we have. We actually met with him yesterday and he said a lot of the Restoration made sense to him. He downloaded the Book of Mormon on his Kindle so hopefully he starts to read. We meet with him hopefully on Saturday to see how things are going. 

It was hard for the appointment to go through and a little interesting to try a new finding spot but we were where we needed to be at that time. We would not have met Baris or Paul if the lesson went through. It stunk in the moment but now it is way cool to see the Lord's hand in our daily activities.

For P day we are visiting a member in wiener Neustadt who knew the grandparents of Elder Buss. We are going to hike to a castle and have a BBQ. It should be way fun. 

Yesterday, at district council, I led a discussion about having joy in hard times. I thought a lot about Lehi and how he followed what the Lord wanted despite it being hard. He said it himself in 2 Nephi that "Men are that they might have joy." I noticed that Lehi was confident in the decisions he made and the faith he showed in God's plan for him. I noticed it a lot on my mission as well that when I trust God, that is when joy becomes easier to find. It is never easy and honestly I have stopped expecting it to be but that does not mean that there is no room for joy! Joy comes from being obedient and remembering Jesus Christ. No other kind of joy can last so long and be so satisfying! 

I hope you all enjoy your summer. Fall is coming quick! I love you all!

Elder Evans