November 28, 2011

Hey everyone! It was great reading all of your emails. Seems like you all had a great Thanksgiving and that you all enjoyed the holiday!

Well, things have been going great here. To answer all of your Thanksgiving questions, it was amazing! haha. We got together at the mission office as a zone, so there was only about 20 of us. Plus, 2 senior couples and President and Sister Carter decided to come to ours as well. I ate WAY too much, as usual on Thanksgiving, so no worries there. I had to stuff it all in why I had the chance haha. It was
strange being on the other side of the world and still have a somewhat normal Thanksgiving. We went around and said what we are thankful for, by the way I said all of you :), and we just had a good time eating and socializing. The cookies Elder Seegmiller and I made were amazing too, if i do say so myself. We only burnt the first batch. It was just a test run anyways. But we made m&m cookies and chocolate chip cookies. I'm surprised we got any cookies into the oven cause we ate so much cookie dough haha. It was good though. You would all be so proud. After eating we watched a movie called 17 Miracles. I'm not sure if any of you have seen that, but I highly suggest it. It was so good. It is about the Willie Handcart Company and some of the hardships and miracles that they saw. I'm not sure anyone made it out of the room without crying haha. It was really touchig and made me appreciate our pioneer ancestory that much more. I'm so grateful for how courageous and faithful they were. I thought a lot about why it was so hard for them. I look at our lives today, and yes we have our trials and hardships, but I think about what they endured and went through and it just always humbles me. I think that is why it was so hard. So that in this day, we can look back and see what sacrifices they made for their faith and the truth, and gain the faith and courage to face the things of our today, as well as to humble us in our trials. I hope you all have the chance to watch it someday soon! Elder Seegmiller and I had an great week here in Erebuni. It amazes me how, in life, we learn things and then the Lord turns around and gives us opportunities to apply those things. I have seen that a lot thus far on my mission. Especially this last week. So, last week I talked about having a stronger faith and trust in the Lord that things will happen and work out. Well, it was Tuesday and we had a couple meetings set up at our church building, which is in a neighboring city so it is about 30 minute travel from our place. The meetings were with a member and two potential investigators. So we were waiting there at the
church, and the member was our first meeting, and he walks in and says I'm sorry Elders but today isn't going to work. We were just like no worries, we've still got another meeting. We sat in the church for a
couple minutes and we get a call from the potential investigators, telling us that they can't come. It's funny how fast plans can fall through like that haha. After the phone call I was started to get
frustrated that things had just fallen through, probably as quickly as dad fell through my ceiling...(sorry dad :) ). But then I thought back to that first in Alma, about trusting in the Lord. I turned to Elder
Seegmiller, and he was pretty frustrated, and I told him that something really great was going to happen tonight. I love Elder Seegmiller. His countenance just changed and he was like, yeah
something great is going to happen. So, we get on the bus and start heading back and instead of going back to our place and dropping our stuff off, we decided to just get off the bus and start street contacting. We started walking along and trying to talk to people. And then this guy called us over. The first thing he asked was, "Do you believe that God's name is Jehovah?" I was like oh man, not another
Jdub haha. But he turned out to be a really nice guy. He just told us that he is searching for truth and that he doesn't know which church is true, all he knows is God's name is Jehovah haha. He ended up
inviting us into his house and next thing we know, there is a family of 8 sitting around us! haha. It was so cool. Long story short, they are now our investigators. We weren't able to meet with them again
last week, but we are hoping that things will work out for tomorrow. I'll be sure to let you all know how it turns out. I was so thankful for the opportunity that the Lord gave us to really apply what we had learned last week. I know that as we trust in the Lord and put our faith in Him, that things will work out, in His time and in His way. I was pointed to Alma 37:40-41 last night by another missionary and I really liked it. It is talking about the Liahona, but the same principles apply for the Holy Ghost. It says, "And it did work for them according to their faith in God; therefore, if they had faith to believe that God could cause that those spindles should point the way they should go, behold, it was done; therefore they had this miracle, and also many other miracles wrought by the power of God, day by day. Nevertheless, because those miracles were worked by small means it did show unto them marvelous works. They were slothful, and forgot to exercise their faith and diligence and then those marvelous works ceased, and they did not progress in their journey." I'm so thankful for a kind and loving Heavenly Father. Who hears prayers, who gives us chances to learn and grow, who waits for us to put our faith and trust in Him. I'm so very thankful for these experiences that Heavenly Father is allowing me to have, so that I can learn and grow. I know that things are done unto us according to our faith. I'm grateful to have the opportunity to strengthen my faith and trust in the Lord. I still have a lot of work to do but there is no greater feeling that knowing that you are capable of being an instrument in the Lord's hand. We all are capable of that great blessing and I hope that we can all do those things that are necessary for us to be so. I think that about does it for this week. Know that I love you all very much and am so grateful for our family and the blessings of the temple. That we can be a family forever, if we do our part. I hope you all have a great week and know that you are in my prayers. Thanks for all of you love and care and support!

Love,

Elder Fairclough