Elder Mason Rankin: Mother's Day is the Best!

Another week has come and gone, I probably will never understand how fast time flies by but I definitely love being here in this mission. We are having struggles with finding and having our investigators progress, but we strive to keep our heads high. Without the bad, I'd never appreciate the good as much as I do.

We did found one awesome guy this week. His name is D____ and we found him through a less-active member. She has been dating him for sometime and asked if we would come teach him. So, we went over last Monday and had a great lesson with him. Elder Magleby and I taught them the Restoration and invited them to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. The spirit was so strong there, He led our discussion and gave us the words that touched their hearts that evening. It was probably one of the best lessons I have taught on my mission. I hope and pray D_____ continues to progress. It awesome to see their interest and understanding of our special message. We meet with them tonight, I can't wait! :)

Tuesday was exchanges with the Slidell Spanish Elders. I went with Elder Holm, from Firth, ID. He is a great elder and we had some fun laughs together. He misses Idaho, like I do. Idahome :) I love having the opportunity to go on exchanges with each of the Elders, they each are awesome. Elder Holm and I got to teach a few people together, a lot of people were home for us to visit. One of the families we visited was the C____ family. We have been working with them for a couple months now and really have been praying that they would come to church. They committed to come and actually did! I love seeing progression, it is the best!

Our other success story with inactive members is a man named Bro A____. He has been less-active for some time now and really hasn't had any interest in coming back anytime soon. I found his number looking through the member list and decided to just call it randomly. He answered, which surprised me, and we had a great chat. This was about a month ago and just still haven't found a time where he could meet up with us. Finally this last week, he met up with us and the Elders Quorum President. We had a great lesson about Faith and how we need to nourish it. We invited him to come back to church and he did!! He told us after how happy he was that he came and that he wanted to become active again. I know he can, we are excited to help him.

So yesterday was Mother's Day and that was just the best day ever! We had some good talks about the Savior and Mother's, reminding me of how grateful I am for my Mother and other Mother figures I have in my life. No other love can compare to the Savior's, then a Mother and her child. Since it was Mother's Day, Sacrament meeting was packed and the Elders Quorum was in charge of teaching primary so the women could go to Relief Society. Elder Magleby and I had a blast, it was so much fun being in there with all the little kiddos. They loved us, I seriously was just being attacked the whole time and they all wanted to sit next to me. At least I am popular among the little kids. :) haha. But when they sang and as we listened, I felt the sweet spirit that they bring. I love kids and I love Mother's Day! I was so happy I got to skype y'all, it made my whole day. I am lucky to have such an amazing family, I couldn't do any of this without them, especially my loving Mother. I love you Mom! :)

Have a great week y'all and keep on smiling. Remember to hug your Mom and tell her that you love her. (After all she was the one that used to wipe your bum:)

Love,

Elder Mason Rankin :)