Miracles Really DO Happen!

Jordan enjoying his last leadership training meeting

            Hey Family!  Another week has gone by and it was pretty good.  I attended my last zone conference on Tuesday in Cabanatuan, and it was it a pretty good (as last zone conferences go).  We talked about a lot of things, but I really liked the AP's workshop about reaching our spiritual privileges.  Our Heavenly Father knows our potential.  When we reach a goal that He's set for us, He'll put another mountain in our path to climb.  It's a never ending process.  If we keep climbing, there's no where to go but up, so the higher the mountain that we climb, the closer that we come to Heavenly Father.  A lot of people (including myself) will look up at the mountain and say that it's too high, so they either don’t want to climb or refuse to climb at all.  But, we just have to push ourselves, with faith that we can reach the top if we take one step at a time.  I mean, it's not like Heavenly Father's just going to leave us at the bottom with no way to climb the mountain, right?  When He has a will, He always has a way that He will reveal to us if we ask Him.

 

Jordan is all smiles this week!

           We were at church yesterday with no investigators again at beginning of sacrament meeting.  But after the sacrament, seven of our investigators that we've been teaching from an area that we'd opened up walked in!  That was probably my best Sunday here.  Our Gospel Essentials Class was completely filled up!  I'm so grateful that the Lord answers our prayers.  Even though it took awhile, the Lord answers and will only answer on His time.  What a great way to end the week!  It felt like we had been climbing the mountain, and Heavenly Father gave us food and water to sustain us in our journey to lead others to Him.  That was sweet.

Elder Yu (from Australia) and Jordan were friends at BYU in 2011.
We found him serving in the Nevada Las Vegas Mission and sent this photo to Jordan

          We spent a lot of time finding again this week.  (Yay.)  We encountered a minister of another faith who invited us in began teaching us almost non stop for almost an hour.  We just sat there patiently while he just taught us.  Then, when we thought he was done, we told him that since we gave him time to share that we would now appreciate an opportunity to share with him.  He agreed.  As soon as we started teaching, however, he would interrupt us and start preaching again.  It was really frustrating, as he did not extend to us the same courtesy of listening.  We finally got to the Apostasy and Joseph Smith, at which point he stopped us before we could teach anything and told us he already knew that Joseph Smith wasn't a true prophet.  We asked him how he already knew that.  He responded: "Just cause."  We taught about that we can only know spiritual things through prayer.  We later asked where his authority came from.  He said from the Bible and that someone just said the name of God to him and he received authority.  (He actually told us at the beginning of his lesson that a person couldn't just grab a book and then automatically claim that they have authority because of the book (speaking of Joseph Smith).  So really he contradicted himself a little there.)  He told us to come back another day.  When we did, he said he was busy.  Oh well.  It was interesting.

            Well, I hope that everyone is recovering from BYU's painful loss to Utah this past weekend.  You know, it is great being on a mission where I do not have to freak out about things like that.  (I’d like to thank BYU for making it so easy to forget about football these past couple years.)  Well,  I hope that you're all safe and happy.  The next time I write you, I'll have been out for two years and two days.  Crazy, right?  Ingat kayo lagi.

            Love,

            Elder Jordan "the best two years" Royal

We began a project months ago to identify all missionaries having served in the Bermuda Ward.  It all
came together this week when the plaque arrived.  Looks pretty sweet!