April 21-Frontiers of Faith

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It's been one of those weeks - rough. I could write about all the hard things that happened this week, but that's not fun, so instead I will share a super cool miracle that happened.

On Saturday I went to Marblehead are with Elder Martins for an exchange. We both love finding so we decided to dedicate the entire day to it. On one our first doors we got bashed hard. This guy said some nasty things to us and the church. As I have said before in my emails, I used to be terrified of bashers, but now as I have had experiences with them, that fear has been replaced with frustration. Elder Martins and I decided to take the highroad and leave as peacefully as we could. That was frontier #1. We could have gone back and quit, but we said a prayer and went forward. After about an hour of no one being home or interested Elder Martins asked if I wanted to go to another area to find, in my heart I wanted to but I knew that in order to see miracles, we must push forward, so we did. That was frontier #2. I have also learned that if we must have a positive attitude while finding, or in other words to wear our message on our face, which Elder Martins and I did, we continued with sunshine in our souls. That was frontier #3. As we continued to walk down the street, we saw a lady getting out of her car and we started to talk to her. She was on vacation and not interested but as we were talking her neighbors pulled up. We offered to help carry in their groceries and stuff but they politely declined. I told them how grateful I was by their kindness towards us and they were touched so they invited us in for water. They were a very young couple and super super nice to us. They themselves were very Christian and were even planning a mission trip to Japan. We were able to teach the restoration and answer a ton of questions. They had a lot. They were willing to read and pray about the Book of Mormon, but wanted us to come back with more proof for it. As we left they gave us tons of food and even film for my camera! They want us to come back for dinner sometime so they can learn more about what we believe. We were blown away. We immediately thanked God for this miracle. As we looked back, we could see each time that we could have turned back, but continued onward. I know that sometimes (most of the times actually) their are far more than 3 frontiers of faith and the miracles we see afterwards are not always people who are interested, but I know that God rewards us for not giving up. Elder Kema and I gave a training about the frontiers of faith this last week. We tied it to the story of Nephi's broken bow. These 3 verses stick out to me from that chapter

1 Nephi 16
18 And it came to pass that as I, Nephi, went forth to slay food, behold, I did break my bow, which was made of fine steel; and after I did break my bow, behold, my brethren were angry with me because of the loss of my bow, for we did obtain no food. 
23 And it came to pass that I, Nephi, did make out of wood a bow, and out of a straight stick, an arrow; wherefore, I did arm myself with a bow and an arrow, with a sling and with stones. And I said unto my father: Whither shall I go to obtain food?
28 And it came to pass that I, Nephi, beheld the pointers which were in the ball, that they did work according to the faith and diligence and heed which we did give unto them.

Nephi could  have just quit after he broke his bow, but instead he pushed onward and followed the direction of the spirit. God will always point us in the right direction. Whenever we break our bows, or face trial, we can never give up. 

Stay Stoked

Love,

Elder Judd

PS. Some fun pictures attached (at my cousin's the Garff's house in San Clemente).



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