the hotter the fire, the harder the steel

Things are going pretty usual right now. It seems like I'm learning more than ever that life is constantly a roller coaster with its ups and downs and turn arounds that tend to make us sick. It's kind of funny example, but its so true! We're definitely facing one of those down-times. We're working really hard, and because of the kinds of people in our area and other reasons, we aren't seeing the success that we'd like to see. We're finding plenty, but we're not teaching at all. We're doing our best at keeping our spirits up, and working diligently and our ever improving obedience. I know things will be alright, and I know that these things are making Elder Confer the missionary that he needs to be for the rest of his mission, and making me the missionary that I need to be for the rest of my mission and the rest of my life. It's like our mission president said in his mission-wide email today, the hotter the fire, the harder the steel. It's so true!

We had a pretty cool experience this week, where we were out working in a storm. Nothing was going through, and it was dumping and really didnt want to be out in it, but we were far out from our place, and we knew that going in early isnt an option, even if we had already gone our daily mile limit. We prayed about it, and I opened my planner to some notes that I had taken in church from a talk, about When Christ went onto a boat and his disciples followed him. The next thing that the scriptures said was that there arose a great storm. They sure didnt get onto a cruise ship. And disciples of Christ aren't in for a pleasure cruise. We're here for the hard work, and to endure the storms! So as I read that we felt prompted to knock on the street that we had temporarily pulled over onto. The first guy that answered took a book of mormon, and opened up about how he doesnt believe that God answers prayers of his because god is tending to his other children in the world. The next door that answered told us to come back. In between those two doors was a little old lady that we talked to a couple days later that now thinks the world of us. After we endure the storms and call on Christ, he calms the storm, and then we get the cruise.

That storm caused flooding in the town that we were in, and the next day is when we found out about the bulk of it. One lady said that she was too stressed to talk to us, and we didnt even get to say who we were. We somehow started talking to her and she brought up a concern about how she grew up believing in God, but now she wonders why if there was a God, why would he do bad things to children, and why take away so many of her loved ones, and flood her home 3 times, and give her seizures, and all these other trials. We read Alma 14 with her, and told her that God will allow for the wicked to do bad things to the righteous so that judgement will be just to the wicked, and we also read 1 Nephi 11:17 about how God loves us, but we dont know the reasons for everything that he does. She took the book of Mormon from our hands, and told us to come back on Friday. Unfortunately, she had to cancel because she had another family member pass away unexpectedly on Thursday, and had to reschedule for tomorrow.

Things are happening here, but we're unfortunately not humble enough to realize that everything happens in God's time, and definitely not ours. Hopefully he will be alright with our area just EXPLODING in the next week or so, then we can teach a bit, and get this new missionary some experience!

Sure do love ya'll!

~Elder Shain C Wiederholt
888 Oakwood Rd Ste 310
Charleston, WV 25314

PS, we're going to be moving again here shortly, so sending mail to the mission address would be best. :D