Find your "WHY"

This week went pretty well. We finally got in contact with our investigator that was in he hospital. We had an interview with her and she has a baptismal interview and passed. We will be having her baptism on the 28th! Elder Ashcraft and I made a goal to have a baptism every month we are together. It might be kind of hard but I think we can get it done if we are diligent and obedient. Other than that we are just trying to do a lot of finding and sometimes it works but sometimes it doesn't. We either have super good days or just not so great days. There seems to be no middle ground. But the good days definitely surpass the not so good ones. It's just really hard to find people prepared in our small towns. Other than that everything is going pretty well. We are trying to do a lot of contacting with new people and weed out the ones that aren't prepared. We are finding people and they seem pretty prepared and want to take the lessons and things like that but when we schedule a time to come back something always ends up happening to them and they can't meet. This has happened at least a couple times with a few people. I can't tell if this means we need to keep trying or if they really aren't prepared. 

So we were asked to read 1 Nephi for our up coming zone conference. While I was reading I came across the realization that Nephi knew his "why". Laman and Lemuel didn't know their "whys". This is what made it so hard for them. They wanted to do what was right and even tried but complained the whole time. They went back to the city because their father told them to but they didn't want to. Nephi knew the best why and that is faith in Jesus Christ and what he did for us. He wanted to do all he could for our savior. He even search for his "why" to make it stinger and deepen it. "Whys" don't just come from living the gospel and doing what's right. They come from honest hard pondering and praying. I've seen so many good missionaries that are doing what's right but have no idea why they are out on a mission. But like Laman and Lemuel, when they get called to do something hard, they murmur and complain. Nephi searched for his "why" in chapter 11. He wanted to truly know for him self what God wanted. He wanted to deepen his "why". So he got down and prayed. He pray earnestly and hard. He found his why and worked with it. He deepened his "why" each day. So I challenge each of you to find your "why" of living the gospel and gospel standards. It's just going to get hard to live the standards as time goes on. Satan won't stop working on us and he will make us think "the gospel isn't for you", "the gospel is old fashioned", "the gospel is boring or doesn't really work". Satan can tempt us with so many things and this is when we need our why. Our firm foundation in Christ and what he did for us. What he can do for us now. How much he can help us in our everyday lives and when we realize how great of debt we are in to Him, then we will notice how much we need to try and repay him as much as we can. Then we will understand why we live the gospel and how great of a blessing it is to have it in our lives. He only asks of so little for how much he did for us! Stay true to the iron rod! I love you all. Sorry I don't have much to say about how the missionary work is going this week. But here are a couple of pictures 

Arizona sunburn

Elder Lange and Elder Ashcraft just chillin

Elder Lange and Elder Ashcraft

A blurry picure of where we live 

Alec's mom talking:  This was send to me in a text the other night.  Eating cupcakes after dinner, I love how Elder Lange has three on his plate!  Typical.