Get Thee Up

Hello all,

We've had a very sorry end to our 90 by the 9th goal this week. I'm not sure why it worked out this way, but we had a record low of 4 new investigators in the zone this week. Here in Bay City, Elder Morales and I worked our hardest this past week and didn't teach a single new person. We haven't given up just yet, though. Today is the 9th, so we have urged all members of the zone to work hard today to get the 19 more investigators we need. We've scheduled a couple of appointments during our preparation day, hoping a little sacrifice will bring the blessings of the Lord.

I was really grateful for the study we had this morning. Elder Morales shared with me a few verses from Joshua 7, to which he had cross-referenced from Alma 53. In this story, Joshua and the children of Israel lose a battle against some Canaanites because they have taken "accursed" things belonging to the Canaanites into their midst. Joshua complains to the Lord because of their failure and the Lord gives a compelling response:

"Get thee up; wherefore liest thou thus upon thy face? ...Up, sanctify the people, and say, Sanctify yourselves against to morrow: for thus saith the Lord God of Israel, There is an accursed thing in the midst of thee, O Israel: thou canst not stand before thine enemies, until ye take away the accursed thing from among you" (Joshua 7:10,13).

We hope to acheive our goal today, but if not, we'll keep on with the work. Thanks for your prayers on our behalf. If you'd like another goal to pray for we have a mission-wide goal that each companionship baptize in December. This is going to be a very challenging goal to reach, certainly one that will require the sanctification of the missionaries throughout the MLM.

Otherwise, this was a very good week. We have a new ward mission leader - Manny Martinez - we are very excited about. We had another Zone Leader Council last Tuesday to talk about the things we learned from Elder Pieper. It was great; I'm excited for the progress our mission is making.

We have transfer calls this next Friday. I'm definitely hoping I get to be Elder Morales' first two-transfer companion; I don't want to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas anywhere but the Bay City Ward.

One cool experience I'd like to share. We'll be teaching a woman later this afternoon whom we met while door-knocking. We didn't knock on her door because she was standing outside raking her leaves. She actually let us help her! We raked leaves with her for about an hour, talking about our beliefs, her beliefs, and her questions about life. It was a very fun experience; I hope to have many more like it.

Love you all,
Elder Cloward