Email from August 8, 2022
Hey all,
How are y’all doing? I hope that it’s been a good week, and you’ve gotten to learn all about Job in the come follow me this week! It is a good book in the Old Testament and with the Come Follow Me teaching about “Bible Poetry” it makes so much more sense! So that was cool :).
Monday, we went to a member dinner with the Beardsley family, so that was good! Crazy to think they were the first members in the ward I met haha. We had a lesson with one of our friends, and it went pretty good! We aren’t quite sure how well he is progressing because he is reading and praying, but not coming to church yet. We’ve taught him all of the lessons and right now he is reading from start to finish the Book of Mormon. We have another lesson tonight, so hopefully he has been reading!!
Tuesday, we had District Council. That went super good and I was grateful for the spirit that we could feel. It is always nice to meet with the district and learn from each other. It’s weird because I have been out for long enough to have experiences to share that can potentially help others! I remember when I first got out, I would try to soak as much information as I could and share when I could, but it is weird seeing new missionaries come in and old ones leave ?. For the rest of the day, we went door knocking, made some phone calls, and mowed a members lawn.
Wednesday, we had a super awesome lesson with this new lady we met. We taught the Plan of Salvation, and she seemed to eat it up! She really liked how we could help answer so many questions that she had, it was a super good lesson :). After that lesson in the morning, we went to a recent Converts house and watched a video about the Temple and ate food with them afterwards. We ended up staying at their house for probably way too long, but she is so nice, we think she needed the visit :). We had dinner at the Knickerbocker’s house and then went on some more door knocking around their neighborhood. (We really tried hard with the door knocking this week haha!)
Thursday, we had a good weekly planning. We planned for all of our peeps and scheduled out contacts for everyone. In the afternoon, we had a lesson with one of our friends which I’m not going to lie was a bit disappointing, because they are very much struggling at having an open heart. That night we had dinner at the Meehling’s house and that was super awesome! Definitely a good dinner I’d say.
Friday, we had a full day of finding. We went through all of the contacting types and made a bunch of phone calls and knocked a bunch of doors. We had dinner at the Carrell’s house and they invited the Sheen’s, a new family in the ward to dinner as well, and it was a crazy but funny and good dinner ?. It was pulled pork sandwiches, and they were super tasty.
Saturday, we did some Facebook work and almost got to meet a friend in person, but ended up canceling because it was supposed to rain (but it didn’t lol). We went to the store instead and tried to do some store contacting. We had dinner with the Williamson again, and they are still an awesome family to have dinner with!! We knocked doors before and after dinner, so we definitely stayed busy with that!
Sunday, we had a good fast and testimony meeting. There wasn’t any awkward silence moments, so that was good ?. There was one person who came to chruch who is not a member, so that was cool to see them! They are the wife of a member we’ve been working with, so it was super cool to see both of them at church :). For Second Hour, we were asked to teach for the Come Follow Me lesson, so that was fun! Saturday night, we got a text asking, so of course we said we would love to! I would say the lesson went really good! It was a good, open discussion all about the story of Job.
That leads into my spiritual thought for today. It is going to be all about Job. Job was a very good, righteous man! He loved God and put his faith in Jesus Christ, even when bad things happened to him. In the beginning of the story of Job, at the beginning, Job loses essentially everything. He lost his wealth, his house, his family (except his wife), his health (he had boils all over), and he was really down in what we might call the dumps. A few of his friends come to comfort him, and they did for a time, but they started to judge and ask if Job was a sinning man.
Despite all of these things that are happening, Job does have questions, but he still remains faithful to the Lord! In the end of the Story, Job gets healed, and the Lord blesses him with double of everything that he had before all of the bad stuff happened!
The story of Job can answer a lot of different questions. Why do bad things happen to good people is the one I want to focus on today. This week, a lot of my studies have been focused on restored truths that we have as a result of the Restoration of the Chruch. One of these truths is the Plan of Salvation, which is mentioned towards the end of the chapters in Job. This Life is only one small part of the plan, and it is a time where we are tested to see if we will continue to choose Heavenly Father no matter what! It is comforting to know that we knew before that life was going to be hard, but we still knew it would be worth it! Plus, Heavenly Father won’t give us any trials we can’t handle.
Im not quite sure what I am trying to say, but I am grateful for the opportunity to study the Book of Job more than I have in the past. I know that it is not the easiest story to tell/teach, but it seems to be very relatable sometimes! I am grateful for the restored gospel and the knowledge that we get to learn as we trust in the Lord through our afflictions and feel the peace that comes through Jesus Christ. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
I love you all, hope you have a great week!!
– Elder Claussen
