Story of the Donkey who feel down the well

Another birthday year has past.  Elder J my companion asked if I felt wiser when we got up and I said no.  Hence why I fell asleep after church and burned our lovely chicken dinner. I was cooking chicken in the oven and burned it into black hockey pucks.  But the good news is that my headache went away while I was dreaming of chicken for dinner. We didn't do anything for my birthday.  An investigator offered to take Elder J. and I to the pub for my birthday bump or drink but I declined.  

Best thing about the week has been game night!  We have a game night every Friday night at the Church and lots of people come and it was really fun. We played basketball and football.  Lots of members and investigators.  The craziest thing was burning Sunday dinner like I mentioned above. Elder J. and I had enough food for one meal on Sunday so I made a big Sunday dinner.  So we spent the next two hours saying what type of food we would want and what we would do for it. 

The investigators are pretty bad right now.  Everyone is still sick and no one has been to Church. They have problems with the Book of Mormon but will not meet up to tell us about them. So it is getting pretty frustrating. But we have found some new people this week and started to teach them. But only time will tell how it goes.

I heard a cool story during Sacrament meeting.  It was about this donkey who fell down a well.  The farmer found the donkey and thought for hours on how to get it out.  He finally decided that the donkey was old and the well was dry so he invited his friends over to fill in the well with dirt. The donkey realized what was going on and started to neigh.  But soon it stopped and the farmer looked down the well and saw something amazing. With every shovel full of dirt that hit the donkey, the donkey just shook it off and tramped it down. Eventually the donkey had made a platform of dirt to get out of the well.  The farmer was surprised at the result of this. We are like the donkey. What do we do with our problems, trails, or sorrows.  Do we bear them up or do we shake them off and move forward. 

I hope that we can all shake off our burdens with the help of our Savior Jesus Christ.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes!

Love, Elder Nielsen