Week 17; Happy New Year

Photo Album: https://photos.app.goo.gl/QuW5JQQJL6emqhb68 HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!🥳🥳🎉🎊🥂 Wow it's actually 2026, that doesn't sound like a real year. The whole entire year of 2026 I'll be here in Pennsylvania, wild to think about. Hope we all can set some goals for ourselves to become 1% better each day. Transfers are next week and this is the final reporting week of the transfer, it flew by. I'll most definitely be leaving Johnstown (Finally) to start a new chapter somewhere else, I'm so excited. This week we had to make a show of faith and drop some of our friends. We are distancing ourselves from jay because he's someone who's willing to be baptized versus wanting to be baptized. He doesn't want to make the commitments in order to progress, he's been to church 5/6 past 6 weeks, he's been taught and retaught everything. He just can't get past word of wisdom and actually putting in the effort to read on his own time. Its frustrating, but I know that the Lord has people waiting for us to find now that we're directing our attention somewhere else. Sometimes it's hard to let go of people who are willing to make those commitments. When we had the University Zone leaders down here, we found a lot of people so hopefully some of those people can progress. This week was weird, there was a lot of slow days due to the New year. On New Year's Eve we were required to go in before dark to stay safe and on New Year's Day we were cautioned against going out and doing work. So this week has been pretty slow. This week we had the University's Zone leaders in our area and it was so blessed. I was with elder Hadley and he's an amazing missionary. We talked with a lot of really cool people and got a couple finds. There was this one guy who originally had opened the door with a club on his shoulder basically ready to scare us off. We ended up talking with him about our church and clarifying some things and he put down the club and said we could talk. At the end of the whole conversation and it was super spiritual he ended up coming outside and giving us a hug, what an experience. We were pretty much in the same area a whole day and it bore lots of fruit. Me and Elder Hadley had a lot of in-depth conversations about life and some of our struggles we've been having and it was super nice. He gave me some well needed advice on missionary work and gave me some reassurance that I'm doing great things. We stopped by a past referral in person and she open up the door and was really cool. She mentioned how she's had a lot of struggles with getting out of bad relationships and getting into bad stuff. She wants to find God in her life and wants her and her two teenage kids to be baptized. While we were talking to her it was pretty loud outside and it was hard for us to hear each other, but as soon as I mentioned the Book of Mormon, it went completely silent, like deafening silent. The spirit really showed in that moment and it was amazing and wonderful experience. Miracles are happening here in Johnstown. This week I have been locked in in the New Testament and have read a lot. I've been trying to read six to eight chapters in my study for the first 30 minutes every day and it's been so good. On Sunday I was in Romans and now I'm in 1 Thessalonians. Just a bit of reading. If I keep at this pace then I'll be done with the New Testament by the end of next week. Faith in Jesus Christ is a principle of action and power. We act in faith, and then the power comes according to God's will. "Faith is the assurance which men have of the existence of things which they have not seen, and the principle of action in all intelligent beings. … [It] is the first great governing principle." One of my favorite scriptural accounts in the bible is a constant reminder to me of the need for faith. It is the story of Caleb and Joshua, who had been assigned by Moses, along with 10 other men, to search out the land of Canaan and to bring back a report. The other 10 men returned saying, “The people be strong that dwell in the land, and the cities are walled, and very great.” “Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it. “But the men that went up with him said, we be not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we.” Because of their lack of faith, “they brought up an evil report of the land … saying, … there we saw the giants, … and we were in our own sight [like] grasshoppers.” But Joshua and Caleb responded, “The Lord is with us: fear them not.” But the people, like the 10 faithless messengers, could not see what the Lord was willing to do and would not follow Joshua and Caleb. Because of this lack of faith, the people wandered in the wilderness for 39 more years. From that original group, only Joshua and Caleb survived and were allowed to enter the promised land. You may remember Caleb’s famous words as he and Joshua stood before Mount Hebron, the very place they had searched out so many years before. Caleb said: “As yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me. … “Now therefore give me this mountain.” Because of his faith, he and his family for generations inherited his mountain in the promised land. There are challenges ahead. We may be tempted to doubt and bring back a bad report filled with fear and doubt. This lack of trust in the Lord will not get us to the promised land. Like Caleb and Joshua, we must cast aside our fear and exercise our faith to claim the blessings He has waiting for us. We must see every challenge and trial in our lives as an opportunity to deepen our faith in Jesus Christ. What might the Lord do if collectively we replace fear and doubt with hope and faith? I believe He would move not just the needle but mountains—so that miracles will happen in the lives of all. With Love, Elder Batman