a nest that's blessed: October 2011

Dear Family,

First i will talk about my week then i will talk about a year as a missionary,

This week was good but yesterday was CRAZZZZY! Sunday was a bad day 4 sure.. we only had one investigator show and the ward mission leader was riding my back like crazy he was telling me to hound the ward for referrals and every time i talk to a member ask for a referral... which in my opinion is a bad idea but i told him i would try. anyways during priesthood he told me to stand up and ask for referrals- i miss understood him and told the members to fellowship the investigators we already have then in priesthood i listened to all the priests and teachers talk about y they cant invite friends to church because past missionary's would hound and text and call them all the time and people hate our church so why invite people to come, so i was kinda in a bad mood then after church the ward mission leader got in my face and made me repeat 10 times in korean how to ask for a refferal... i was a little ticked off... ok a lot ticked of so when he finished chewing me out he started to walk away i said hey wait a second and then i asked him for a referral.... he was speechless and said muttered that he didnt have one.... yah i know probably wasnt the best thing to do. but u know me . anyways i got home sunday and went to work because monday was our ward activity. It was sweet! well the activity wasnt great but we had 7 investigators show up sooo it was SICK ! there was about 27 members and 7 investigators! It was sooo awesome! my ward mission leader was pretty stoked that there was so many investigators it was nuts though. trying to keep tabs on all my investigators was sooo hard.. each one is soo tender and i was terrified of members destroying my investigators.... hahha ya it was intense but after we had an investigator call us and tell us how impressed she was with me and my comp and that she wants to join our church!!!! it was AWESOME!!! she is still a ways from baptism but it was a huge step for her!

1 year

It fills like yesterday i was studying my korean abc's in the mtc and now its one year later and im still studying my abc's. i have to stand back and look to see if i have progressed at all. Honestly I dont feel like i have. Only at certain times do i feel like i have moved forward at all. People really cant understand why we missionaries serve, Out of duty, for money, education, forced to? They always ask me why im serving and never seem to understand my answer. Its because I know its true. I guess I have grown a little bit in excepting what the lord wants me to do, If its hard thats ok its just a small bump on a path to blessing. I also feel like my capacity to feel has expanded just because of the fact i have felt soo much more then i could ever feel back home. I have never felt so happy seeing people being baptised or watching lives change, I have never felt so sad hearing that recent converts have gone less active or getting people so close to baptism and then they disappear. The last year has been a dream. Its all flown by so fast....

And I think korean has made me want to cry over a 100 times. sunday we were teaching some members a lesson in our terrible korean and when we finsished the mom expounded on what we said and re said a lot of it she finished and the youngest son looked up at his mom and said wow i didnt know you could understand english. times like that crush me, i walked out of the apartment feeling like a huge failure 1 year and i still am terrible at korean... I walked out of the parking lot with my head low we walked past the gaurd by the gate and i gave him a half hearted bow, we kept walking for about 2 minutes... i felt terrible i was past crying the feeling of being an insificient missionnary bore down on my sole, I did my best to find it off when i felt the small simple prompting the slightest nudge to turn around and go back the gaurds face popped in my mind. No hesitation i turned around and walked back to the gaurd and told him that i had a book i wanted to give to him i explained it in 2 sentences he took the book and i walked away, at the same time i gave him a book this older guy road past on a bike and looked at the book of mormon i was giving the gaurd, he slowed down but kept going. we finished talking with the guard and continued on our way home. we made it about to the spot that we turned around last time when a bike skidded infront of us. It was the guy on the bike, he asked us if that was the bible, we said no, and then asked if he could have that book one. we said forsure he took it said thanks and before i could say anything else he jumped on his bike and left. It was a tender mercy from the lord. Maybe they will read it maybe they wont. all i know is the lord does his best to speak and teach his children. Even though im terrible at korean and i dont know a lot about the gospel i can still do my best to preach and the lord will help

My thought now is one year is up now i really need to do some work.

I love you

Elder Darin paul Dooley