Solothurn - Week 11

Hey everybody! This week has been pretty long. Some crazy stuff going on this week and lots of fallen out appointments again. That's always a thing though.

I had a really good Austausch in Zollikofen with Elder La Plant after we had interviews with President. My interview with President was really good. It was nice, it's been about 2 and a half months since I've seen him. He's really struggling figuring out what to do with our area. He wants to close us Elders because there's 13 elders in the mission going home, and almost none coming in. He has to close all areas with 4 missionaries in them. So either us or the sisters are getting closed, he just needs to figure out what to do. It would be difficult for the sisters to take over the work we have going here, and they don't have much going on to be brutally honest. So we will see what he does. Who knows?

Another cool thing, to figure out more with the situation, President came to our sacrament meeting yesterday and gave a talk. It was great to have him there. I'd never had President in one of our sacrament meetings before. He gave a talk about hearing different voices. This is kind of where my thought comes from for today.

We all live in a world surrounded by voices. As I think about my home life, I would wake up, pray, and hope to hear the Spirit throughout the day. Then I would go upstairs, hear the voices of my Mom and Dad, of siblings, then of friends at school, of different teachers and professors throughout the day, from a boss or work colleagues, of coaches and teammates, then again of mom and dad before I jump into bed at night again. Not even mentioned in that is my own voice. My own thoughts throughout the day. There's hardly a point where we aren't hearing a voice. So when do we hear the voice of the Spirit? There's points where other people get so tired of hearing the judging, accusing, annoying, or condoning voices of others, that they refuse to continue living the way they are. The voice of the Spirit is never judging, accusing, or condoning, rather loving, understanding, and guiding. When one doesn't take the time to plan a time into their day to listen to the Spirit, life becomes twice as difficult.

As yesterday was May 15, I thought on the restoration of the Priesthood which occurred 187 years ago. If Joseph had never chosen to take time to listen to the voice of the Spirit, we would have no truth on earth today. Miracles happen when we take the time to listen. That's my testimony!

Have a good week, I appreciate your prayers!

Elder Hadfield