Comfort and Growth

Hello friends and family from the greatest city in Nebraska,
Lincoln.  As always, it is amazing to be a missionary, and I thank the
my Father in Heaven every day for giving me the opportunity to come
back out on a mission.  Although we go through trials, the Lord is
always there, and will lift us out of them.  So, this week was
interesting.  We had our first zone training with our zone.  It's a
new meeting that the First Presidency has implemented where once a
month we get to gather our zone together without the mission president
or assistants and train them as zone leaders.  It went really well.
Many of the Elders in our zone have unique challenges, so it was a
great experience to be able to pray for what they need and seek to
minister unto them.  We were able to give a training on the principles
of finding, and also the Christ-like attribute of humility.  We
learned a lot, and hopefully they did as well from the Spirit.  So
being in a singles ward we have some very unique ways of trying to
find people to teach.  One way is we play ultimate frisbee with the
ward on Thursday nights.  Well, last Thursday we had two non-members
show up who were friends of a recent convert.  After we played the
member, who's name is Josh, texted us and told us that they both
wanted to start taking lessons.  It was awesome.  Then at church on
Sunday, there was a non-member there from California who said his
buddy had taken him to church a couple of times there and he wanted to
get serious about joining.  The Lord truly sees the desires of our
hearts, and although we don't have many investigators now, he is
providing people for us to teach.  President Weston came on a team-up
with both of us on Thursday.  It was fun.  We took him tracting.  It
was fun, but weird, because he was asking us for advice on how to
tract and what to do with the mission, since he is so new, haha.  We
also had the Sister missionaries come down to Lincoln last night to do
their pioneer concert.  All the Sisters serve in Omaha, so they never
get down here.  It was good, and our missionaries brought a good
amount of investigators and members brought a lot of their friends.
So, although it was a bit of a slow week, all is well. :)
            So spiritual thought of the week is about growth.
President Kunz would always say, "There's no growth in your comfort
zone, and there's no comfort in your growth zone."  That is so true
about life.  It is so important to never become complacent.  Sure, we
should be grateful for the things that we have been given, but we
should always seek and strive to be better.  That means that we need
to put ourselves in situations that will stretch us.  I think of
Nephi, and what an amazing example he is to us.  He constantly put
himself in situations that would make him grow, even though he didn't
always know what to do.  He trusted that the Lord wouldn't give him
anything more than he could bear, and then faithfully walked out into
the unknown.  Whether it was getting the plates, creating a bow, or
building a ship, Nephi was always growing.  It's like my Mom always
says to me, "I can do hard things."  So, this week, do something that
is hard.  Life is all about growth.  Pray for mountains to climb.  I
promise as you do that the Spirit will be there to strengthen you and
you will become more like our Savior.  I love you all so much and hope
you have an amazing week.

Godspeed,
Elder Chandler Kendall