Greetings from Virginia!
How is everybody doing this week? I know that you all must be doing pretty well. I imagine that everyone has got back into the groove of things and are loving every minute of school. I really miss school. I miss learning more stuff and I really treasure the time I get to even study my scriptures and learn more about the gospel. It is funny because being a missionary you find a lot of time teaching people about the gospel, but only a short amount of time actually learning more about it. I really love learning more and more. I have come to find that learning more about Christs atonement really helps you out in all aspects of your life. The more you understand the atonement the more you want to share the peace and joy you can feel buy following the principles of the gospel which are faith in Jesus Christ, repentance, Baptism, and receiving the gift of the holy ghost. Through Christ the feelings of shame that you feel can literally be dispelled. I love it so much and I am thankful for the time I get to grow and learn more about it.
The reason missionaries go on missions is hopefully selfless, but even though you are here to spread the joy that can be felt through following the principles of the gospel you grow tremendously. If your shy you will no longer be shy on your mission. If you are not confident in your beleifs as a latter day saint that will change as well. If you don't really care for other people you will by just going on a mission. I am out here not for myself, but because this work is important. When Christ was ministering to those on the earth he saw the multitudes of people around him. He saw how many people needed him. He had compassion for all of these people but, he could not visit all of them himself. He said in Mathew 9:37-38 that their is a great harvest, but few laborors to reap that harvest. The Lord needs missionaries. He needs people to reach out for him so people can feel his love.
Anyway I don't know what came over me, but I guess that is what I am feeling in my heart today. I am currently sitting in the Library. Libraries in Virginia are really nice. They have a teen center with video games and this LIbrary is giant. People out here are so lucky for the education they get. I am really jealous of the kids here too. They get delays and snow days like every week! It is getting ridiculous hahaha. Anyway I experienced what freezing rain is like. You think shoveling your walkway is bad with snow? Try about 3 inches of ice. It takes forever. We helped a bunch of people with this yesterday. I ended up asking for a flat headed shovel because that got the ice waaaaay better than a little plastic shovel. Monday was a ton of fun. I got to go on exchanges with one of my Zone leaders Elder Palmeroy. He is a really fun guy. We didn't have a lot planned for that day so you guessed it we started knocking doors. After knocking a row of houses and realizing that everyone was probably elsewhere because of lack of cars we headed down the street to find a family playing a game of basketball. I asked if we could play with them. They were reluctant at first, but I told them that we didn't have anything else better to do ( little did they know that talking to people was all that we are suppose to do :) ) he agreed to let us play. We must have hung out with that family for like 2 hours. They invited us back anytime. To bad they aren't in my area hahaha. Definetly new investigators though. That just showed me how much fun you can have on your mission if you look for oppurtunities like that.
Last week Elder Kelly and I worked very hard. We ended up getting our zone standard which consists of 20 lessons 3 new investigators and 80% of the investigator lessons having a member there with us. Our ward is really starting to get fired up about missionary work and I am waaaay excited about it. When the ward starts getting involved that is when the real work happens. I heard once that President Hinckley said that Traditional missionary work(AKA tracting doors and street contacting) is not the most effective way to do missionary work. Members should be finding missionaries should be teaching.
Anyway I feel like I have been rambling on. Just know that I love you all and everything is going well here in Virginia. Hope you had a good day off on monday and keep working hard and striving to do whats right!
LOVE YOU GUYS!!!!!! More than I can express
Elder Cameron Zabriskie
