Well I am still here haha

Dear Mum, Dad, and family,

Surprise...it was transfers again! And well...I am still here haha. I have been here for now 6 months. I am excited for it though. I am serving with Elder Pryor. He has lived in the same flat as me for the past 6 weeks. So everyone can start sending me letters again!!! :) Mum, you should do me a favour!! :) Could you put a few more deodorant sticks in the parcel you are sending? That would be great!

I'm adding a little section of our email to Tyler from June 14th...

Tyler said in his email last week that he would let us know his thoughts this week. 

Thought whoever reads his blog might be interested in knowing the whole thing. :)

Well, that’s our week!  Now for some thoughts:

• If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.               (J. K. Rowling)
• If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at why he thinks he has inferiors.               (C. F. Fears)
• Life must be lived forward, but it can only be understood backward.               (Søren Kierkegaard
• Get your sails ready and by and by God will send the wind.               (Author unknown)
• The wise man doesn't give the right answers, he poses the right questions.               (Claude Levi-Strauss)
• When you are chided for your naiveté—and you will be—remind your critics that an amateur built the ark and experts built the Titanic.               (Peyton Manning, 2014 commencement speech at the University of Virginia)
• Remind yourself every morning when you wake up that each day is a gift and you’re bound to make the most of the blessing you’ve been given. The moment you start acting like life is a blessing is the moment it will start acting like one. After all, a great day begins with a great mindset.  Travis Bradberry

Well son, go build your ark and pray for some wind.  Seek to do the will of your Father in Heaven with full purpose of heart and blessings will flow.  You are about a great work…. Always seek to find the good in every one of your experiences.  By the way…. Are you praying for the gift of discernment???? Heavenly Father can help you to understand the reservations of your investigators…. He can put words in your mouths and thoughts into your minds to help your investigators to progress.  We understand that your investigators need to do their part in order for them to progress and obtain a witness of the Spirit…. Another question:  Are you giving up on them too quickly?  The line between success and failure is thin (sometimes we can be discouraged by the adversary) remember every soul is worth battling for.  Go and fight the good fight… sometimes we will experience success through second attempts.  Don’t know why I am writing this other than I feel inspired.  Let us know why we are sharing these feelings (you surely must know). 

Now Tyler responds and shares his thoughts... this week!

So for the question you asked me last week. I have been thinking about it for quite a while now. I was thinking am I giving up on all the people we are teaching. I was thinking ya know we are trying as hard as we can to help them and they still aren't doing anything. But to be honest I think the reason why you felt like sending that to me was not because of the investigators that we are teaching but because of me. I don't mean to sound like I was giving up on myself but it kind of put things in perspective for me. I was getting down because all we were doing was starting over and over again and it seemed like nothing was going anywhere so I was getting a bit discouraged about it. I was thinking why do we keep going. I was "giving up", so to say, on myself because I wasn't having a good attitude about everything. Don't get me wrong I love being here and I wouldn't trade it for the world but I was holding myself back from doing and being the best I can be, because I was letting myself think that we weren't doing good. I think that is what it is. I am grateful that you sent that to me, you always know what to say! We just gotta keep truckin'! :)

As for the week honestly so many things have happened. First off, I can't remember if I told you this last week but last week Elder Smith and I were street contacting, and this guy was walking by with a guitar so I decided to ask him if I could play a song. So I did. He gave it to me and I played the only song I remember...that was "the lion sleeps tonight" and I sang really quietly. haha. Well turned out he wasn't too bothered about the gospel. We were walking later that day past a park and this group of girls stopped us and they told us that they saw me playing the guitar. They said they wanted to know who we were. Well we told them and then they started asking us questions about what we believed. So we basically taught them the plan of salvation and the restoration. Well they told us they wanted to know more because they really liked it. We told them they had to get notes from their parents. Well we are now teaching two of them and they are really interested. They have a baptismal date for the10th of July. They came to church this past week and really enjoyed it. They are also getting involved with the Young women so we are really excited for them.

The other thing is we are starting to work with a guy by the name of Rhys. He is pretty cool. He told us that he wanted to know if this was true but didn't want to be pushed. Well he also came to church and we are going to start working with him more now!

We have also been working with Mike and Wilma, Caroline's parents, they normally meet us at Caroline's house and we teach them there but one day we decided to try by their house. Normally they don't answer. So Elder Smith and I knocked on their door...we knocked again...and again and finally they answered. Wilma said that they were about to go to bed because they had an early morning the next day and Mike was walking by and said "oh let them in for a while" Well they haven't had missionaries in their house for 10 years. The Lord definitely works in mysterious ways!

I guess something I learned this week is that no matter what Heavenly Father always provides a way! Nothing will come between him accomplishing his work! I love my Heavenly Father and Saviour Jesus Christ. There are so many things that I wish I could say but don't know how. All I know is that I know that this is true, everything about it. Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, this church, the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith. Everything is 100% true and I cannot deny that. I love it. I hope you are all well.

God be with you till we meet again. On our way. #10sof1000s. HE LIVES.

Love, Elder Tyler Rife

"The Book of Mormon is the key to Heaven"