Matthew 11:28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy lade and I will give you rest.

This week in Tampa Florida, has been incredible. In these early parts of my mission here I am simultaneously trying to teach myself and those around me. I often allow my own mistakes, and weaknesses to take priority over those I am teaching. But the Lord helped me and has given me time to learn and teaches me every day. I have found so many faults in myself that I want to fix that I can be a greater disciple of Christ and servant of my Lord and Savior. I knew that when I figure this out I could serve with more confidence and testimony! So this week It started with a testimony of fasting, I knew that if I truely wanted and need assitance and words from the Lord, I need to sacrifice and show him that i need it. So all week I studied and pondered and prayed. In preparation for conference this weekend and boy were the questions of my soul answered. I wanted to know, how do I fulfill my potential? how do I serve the Lord the way he deserves to be served. How do I overcome fear, and...DO THIS!!

I recieved so much revelation! Part of which was from Elder Ballard, he said that fear will be replaced with faith when members and missionaries kneel and ask for missionary opportunites! This connects with my own fears! A lot of time, we are afraid of missionary opportunites, and we are afraid of doing good continuously and afraid of doing ALL that the Lord asks. As missionaries, we are held to a higher law. so part of the revelation was from a member of the Bishopric we spoke with along with conference, he told me that we must first want...to want! We can pray for the desire and then TRY! We will DO what WE want! That is the whole point of having a savior, we need him because we will always at sometime do what WE want. So if we can train ourselves to do what the LORD wants we will then become in tune and serve him to our FULL potential!! 

yes this life is hard, but if we KNOW what we must do, then we need to WANT to do it. As we do it more we will condition our minds and hearts to do those things!! and that will become us!! When the Savior died and suffered for us, we became His, if we were held to the Father's law, we would be destroyed instantly! But because the Savior, we answer to His law, and he grants us MERCY! Mercy enough to keep going. Elder Uchtdorf said, we are doing better than we think! and no matter how bad we ARE doing, its never to late to change as Elder Nelson said. In his talk I recieved the most inspiration. We are not destined to fail! We are the chosen ones, the noble and great ones, the ones who said I won't stop trying father. I love you so much that I won't stop trying. When we TRULY TRULY want to do better, we can FIND our answers! And we can get that desire and we can do this! The same words and scriptures, faith, repentance, love and the atonement. Will suddenly mean something different, or hit you stronger. This is the way the Lord wanted it. Keep TRYING! And don't be afraid! I Testify that the Savior knows what we are doing, and how we are doing and all we must do is come unto him. Come unto him and let his gospel, his full gospel to give us rest, unlock new love and thoughts and desire that will bring us the love and the spirit. Which i know we all want to feel. We don't want to be lazy, we don't want to be weak, we don't want to be afraid, but we know we want it to be easier. Well, in Christ it is. i know this to be true. So true and I know that right now in our lives, if we want to be more like the Savior we MUST do missionary work! We must do what we are asked!! Whatever YOU need to do to recieve strength, or the spirit, do it and JUST TRY! We are given so many promises and I know they will be fulfilled! Don't lose faith. 

I know Jesus is the Christ. And i am so grateful that he is. I need him, and I love him. I love this gospel more than anything. I love being a missionary and love my God.

p.s.i'm sorry about last week! We literally had NO! time to write! But its okay!! I forgot to add the things that are happening in the mission so maybe add that we are teaching a family where the father used to be a member and went inactive and one of the members (trying to hasten the work) invited him to basketball and he came and i would invite him to church afterward every time and they finally came! With his whole family!! they have three boys and the mother is from Germany! And they have come to church twice since and love it!!! So a lot of potential there! Pray for them!! The Hess family! They are the BOMB! 

Elder Nelson

Be not Afraid; Only Believe