Grand Island #8

I'm running out of things to say at the beginning of these so I guess welcome to the weekly email!

This week we finally got some snow! It was so much that we couldn't leave the apartment monday or most of Tuesday. But that opened up chances to shovel snow for people and we have met some really cool people! One of them already has member friends and said that we can come over sometime! It's crazy how people's hearts can be opened by a little bit of service and love.

Another example of that front the week is that there is this older couple that we come over and visit sometimes and we went and shoveled their driveway. It didn't take too much time or anything, but it really helped them out.  And then we went over again later that week and their hearts were even more opened to the gospel and we gave them Book of Mormons (Books of Mormon? Or Books of Mormons idk) and they said they would read it! And our service also softened the heart of some random person who found out what we are doing from Facebook and messaged us out of the blue saying he wanted to help us out and be our friends!! 

We had a devotional with the mission and it was with someone who was baptized and served a mission,  and then went anti against the church and for 26 years fought the church and tried to tear it down. He later turned back to Christ and felt his heart changed, and now is a super solid member! A couple things I learned:

•People make mistakes, but as we are more patient with them, God will show kindness to us.

•Our testimony should be founded on Jesus Christ. If our foundation is  church programs, Joseph Smith, tithing, food storage, or even missionary work, it will probably fall. Our foundation should be Christ,  who never fails, and then all those things will strengthen them.

• We never realize the influence we have on people. He talked about all the people that influenced him in his journey even though ay first it seemed to have no impact on him. Slowly his heart was changed through prayer and fasting on the part of other people. So never underestimate the value of a prayer or a compliment or a good example or a smile. 

Have a great one!

-Elder Olsen