Faith to Find. 10/1/12

Dear family and friends, Well this week went well. I gotta tell the funny stuff first and then get to the serious testimony later. Today some guy came to our house from the power company and told us he was shutting off the power becuase we hadn´t paid the bill. Well we aren´t in charge of that because we transfer so often, but we joked around with him while the other elders called the housing office. Turns out the housing elder had the receipt on his desk and everything and there was just some mix up in the system. I´m not entirely sure. The funny part came after. The power guy came back up the stairs and said ¨um... i don´t know how to tell you guys this, but you need to call that other guy back and tell him that your landlord downstairs is stealing power from your house. The reason your power bill is so high is because her meter doesn´t even have a cable connected to it. She is plugged into the meter for your house, and I can see that she is using two air conditioners and those use a lot of energy. ¨ All four of us just started laughing. My companion called the housing elder back and told him the story and I heard ¨wait...WHAT?! HOW?!?!¨ hahahaha. It would probably be a different story if she was robbing me personally, but for now I think its pretty funny. Its just kind of a normal thing that happens here, I wasn´t the least bit surprised when he told us. Anyways we have 4 or 5 people that are progressing. One is a really humble guy named Marino. The lesson started with him saying that the Book of Mormon isn´t inspired of God. After that we had one of the best lessons I have had on my mission. It was completely guided and inspired by the spirit. I know because it was very different from my normal method of teaching. I just felt like taking a different approach. Instead of just giving him the information or trying to prove that its true, we led him to the answers. It´s hard to describe it, but we kind of helped him convince himself that it was true. At the end of the lesson he commited to read from the Book of Mormon to answer a few questions he asked us, then actually read it. Then he explained it to us. Then he came to church yesterday. Needless to say I have been trying this new approach and we have been having more success. Something very similar happened with a guy named Fierro. We helped him answer his own questions, taught frequently with the scriptures, and you could just see the wheels turning as he discovered pieces of the truth forming. I have never seen someone so excited to come to conference this weekend to see if President Monson really is a Prophet. Another large portion of my thoughts is directed towards having the faith to find people to teach. There is a lot of discouragement in my house. They aren´t finding good people to teach, and haven´t had a whole lot of success in the mission. I don´t pretend to be a better missionary, because I know that baptisms are a gift. But having faith that God has sent us here for a reason and wants us to find these people is a huge source of motivation and success. Joseph Smith received an answer to his prayer because he knew God would answer him. He wasn´t just hoping to recieve an answer or asking to see if it would work. He knew he would receive an answer, and because of his faith, he did. My finding efforts are similar. I know I am here for a reason. I know there is someone here who needs me. I know God is a lot smarter than we are and can guide people where he wants them. God is not a failure. His work and Glory is our salvation and exaltation. Trust Him. He knows what he is doing, and will never ask you to do something that would hurt you. It might hurt your pride, and maybe even kill the natural man inside you, but your spirit, character, wisdom, honor, intelligence, and virtue will grow exponentially. Love, Elder Nichols