Hi Mom,
I wanted to share an experience I had yesterday. It was very simple, but a very clear answer to prayer. In our mission, we have just recently received a visit from Elder Causse who is in the Area Presidency. He talked to us about the "desires of our hearts" and how God judges us from them. We talked about it in a lot of different aspects. He mentioned how sometimes things don't go just right, but our desires are still pure and we will not be punished for those things that were out of our control. We also mentioned how God grants unto men according to the desires of their hearts (Alma 29:4). I had a very real experience with this yesterday. We had just gotten out of church and we had set a goal to teach a lesson before going back into the house for lunch. We were tracting and I remember for one of the first times in my mission I really just wanted to find somebody that we could share our message with. Somebody that we could help come closer to their Savior Jesus Christ. In mission terms we call that a new investigator. ;) But I just remember thinking and expressing to the Lord that my honest and sincere desire at that moment was to teach the gospel to somebody. Not because that's what missionaries do, not because I wanted to get to lunch on time (in fact, we were already late for lunch), but because I wanted to help someone. I was praying silently to God, "Just please help us find somebody. I really want to find someone, Heavenly Father." I'm grateful I have a hardworking companion, because we were already really short on lunch time, but we decided we would keep going for one more shkallë. I remember that I was praying between every door for help from the Lord. It was kinda weird because usually my desires aren't that pure. ;) But yesterday for some reason God really helped me out. So we continued to the next shkallë. To put it short, the Lord answered my prayer. He saw that the desires of our hearts were righteous and he granted unto us according to them. We found an incredibly kind and sincere woman and taught her a short lesson and set up a return appointment to come give her a Book of Mormon before she leaves to Italy for a little while. I know the Lord will help us when the desires of our hearts are good. I know that because there has been a TON of times when the desires of my heart may or may not have matched the words I was saying, but then when my heart and my words lined up for a split second, God blessed us. God answers prayers and he wants to help us so badly.
I've really gotta go, but I hope that was a good experience. It really helped me out and helped me end the week on a really good note.
I love you, mom. I'm sorry my e-mails have been so short lately. I've been really low on time. I hope you have a great week! You're in my prayers.
- Elder Swenson
