This week has been the hardest week of my mission, by far. Elder Clark and I have been contacting like crazy and we were able to receive 274 potentials numbers this past transfer and only one investigator who is progressing........ that is ridiculous!!!!! What the heck!!! We also had to drop all of our investigators this past week. So we none, then found 12 this past transfer and then we dropped all of them..... it was so depressing. We were waaaayyyy frustrated. But I have never felt my Saviours love more by the end of the week, and I want to share my experience and I do help it can help any one of you find greater love for yourself.
This is an excerpt from my letter to President:
This has been the hardest week of my mission. But I know that the Atonement of Jesus Christ is true, I know He lives and He has really gone through what I have done and is always there to support and encourage us. I felt like a complete failure of a servant. I felt like I failed God and I could never be good enough to be a missionary, I actually believed I had to be perfect in order to get the work hastening here. Of course I had become increasingly stressed and hated myself, we went out and contacted 274 people and only had one progressing investigator from it, and we dropped all of our investigators.... again. I almost called to ask if you would send somebody else here to help these people, cause I am an unprofitable servant. I was in fervent prayer, really humbling myself trying to see His will for me. And what came into my mind was, "You listen and follow My counsel when I tell you how you need to repent and change, can you not just listen to Me telling you how much I love you? Can you please listen to Me telling you how great you are as a missionary? You're doing a great job, find the prepared." I realized that I denied comfort from God, in a twisted sense, I wanted to suffer in a way. I need to let God in my life more, He won't force us to feel His love, just like He won't force us to follow Him. We need to accept our imperfections and become perfectly imperfect through Christ Jesus. I love my Saviour. We had a wonderful sacrament meeting this week as well, a German Sister gave a talk on how the Book of Mormon changed her life and she started to cry how grateful she was for teh missionaries for giving her the Book of Mormon. It hit me so hard. I have had to talk to thousands of people, and yes, over tens of thousands at this point statistically proven, and almost nothing comes from it. But what does come from it, is unimaginable blessings to at least one soul. I can only imagine if I was in the premortal existence and God told me, "Son, you won't be born into the covenant of My church, but someone will have to talk and get denied by tens of thousands of people until they get to you", I would be begging for that person to do it. And how much I will rejoice for that persons effort to save me. I know that as a missionary we are the people called to do that, and just like that saint from Germany, there are people who will prize this Gospel and Church out there. I am so excited to go find them now! I know that God is in this work. I am excited to find the one lost sheep and bring them home to the Good Shepard.
In the Bible there is a verse that really hit me hard, it is in Matthew 11:28-30 "Come unto me, all ye that are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your sould. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." Sometimes we are carrying this massive weight in our wagons of life and we can't move. Then Jesus comes with his wagon, and He is pushing with all His might with the yoke on His back. He invites you to drop your load onto Him and push with Him. We look and see how big His load is, and even with His help, are just like, "nah brah, we cant do that, that'll just be even harder. There is no way. Not gonna do it." But once we realize we can't move we just try Jesus way and it is soo much easier because Christ is the Son of God, the Messiah and Saviour of the Universe. He can do it! And you can do it with Him!! I know this is true.
I love you all, and I love serving in Penang
Elder Holmes
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