Remembering Romania: Consistency Pays Off

Hey guys,

For those of you who attended my farewell talk, you may remember that I always seem to receive revelation in the shower. Well, here I am again. I started realizing something right before, and when I was in the shower it really hit me and I decided to rush out and write it down. This thing that hit me was "Being Consistent in Your Work Towards Something."

Elder Houk and Elder Bliss with the light of Christ

I've heard this before, but I never really took it to heart until I saw it for myself. All this week I've been trying to do and hold this squat thing with my heels on the ground. I realized that everyone seemed to be able to do it, but I couldn't. I had always wanted to do it, but when I saw that everyone else could do it already, without even trying, and I couldn't, I just thought, "Oh well, I guess if I can't do it now, then I guess my body just isn't meant for it." But this past week I decided, "okay, I'm just gonna give it a try." The first time I basically just kept falling over and had to hold on to something. The next day, I decided to try it again, not really thinking it would do much. I did this for about three days and it got a little bit easier. The fourth day I decided to try it again, thinking I hadn't really improved at all. I let go and fell over and then I tried it again and "Boom" I did it. I was pretty amazed, because I thought I would never be able to actually do it. Then when I was in the shower, I started to realize that it's not how much you can do something but more of how consistent you are doing it and trying to improve. I started realizing things that I have been more consistent with in my life as a missionary. I realized how much I have grown in my testimony. As I study the scriptures everyday for just an hour and ask people and Heavenly Father for help on my lack of understanding, this has helped my testimony of the the gospel and Book of Mormon grow so much, without me really noticing it. I remembered the saying "If your not strengthening your spirit, then it is weakening." I always thought the apostles were asking us to spend all our time doing something that will increase your spirituality extremely, everyday. I thought that I just didn't have the time or desire to spend all my time on a big extreme spiritual study, that it would take up a lot of time and that I could be doing something else. But, instead, I realize now, they are asking us to strengthen our spirit consistently everyday, just as much as you can or want to, as long as you do something. It doesn't have to be anything big. It can be as simple as watching a Bible video or reading a little out of the scriptures, or even visiting the lds.org site and reading a talk or something. It's just a little boost for our spirit that day. A little something to help us grow. And if you imagine just doing a little bit each day, without even noticing it, you will one day look back and realize how far you have come without even doing that much. I always thought that I could just do something really big one day and that that would change me somehow, and when I didn't see much result from what I did, I would get disappointed and just think that it would be impossible. But it's the little consistent things that build you to be stronger and I can testify to you that it's so true, because I didn't believe it for myself until I actually tried it. So I invite you guys to just take a little time out of your day to just do something for yourself spiritually and I can promise you, already, that it will help and bless your life a little bit everyday.

Okay, for this week, I had two lessons on the same day with two different investigators. And one (his name is Gabi) accepted a soft baptismal invitation (an invitation to be baptized but not on a specific date). A hard baptismal invitation is when you set a date with them to be baptized. But Gabi doesn't want to be rushed into it.

On the bus to Bucharest

This week was district conference where all the members of a district meet.

(Think of stake conference.) We (the members and missionaries) bussed down to Bucharest for the event on Sunday. On Saturday, they had the start of the conference over skype. We were able to view it. During Elder Axel H. Leimer's (Area Seventy from Germany) talk he said, "if you ever feel prompted to call someone or visit someone then do it." At that moment I thought about my investigator, Gabi. I just thought I should call him, but I kind of shook it off because I didn't think it was a prompting, for some reason, and I didn't know why I would be calling him. After it was over, I got a call from the branch mission leader of Brasov, who was in Bucharest attending the conference. He told me he tried calling Gabi to invite him to the conference tomorrow but couldn't get a hold of him. (We later found out he had the wrong number) I said, okay and I did. Through my terrible Romanian, he understood me, and quickly wanted to attend, even after I told him that he would have to be at the church by 6am he said he would be there at 530am. Later that day, the branch mission leader called me back, after I text him that Gabi was attending. He told me that he had felt a prompting to invite him during Elder Leimer's talk, and I told him what I had felt and together, we both kind of freaked out on the phone. Gabi attended the Conference on Sunday and even though I could just barely communicate with him, I was able to grow a relationship there and I can say that we are friends and that that invitation was definitely inspired.

Thanks for reading guys and I hope you have a great week. Talk to you soon.

-Elder Houk