Its always fun as a missionary when you open your email to find it empty; not a single new email the whole week. You just feel so loved.
I will just assume your week was good and things are doing fine on the home front. As for Batesville, it could be better and it could be worse. We have good investigators we are working with that are awesome to teach and show great potential. But it is just that: potential. There is not a whole lot of progress and commitment level is not where I desire it to be. Working with people's agency is frustrating and difficult. It is also very challenging to teach people with broken or circular logic. Down here in the South, the most confusing and misunderstood topic is religion. Everyone has their own definition for religion and set it as the unchangeable, the one and only, indisputable law of the universe, standard. It is almost part of the culture to harden your heart and be stuck in your ways.
The Lord requires of us a "broken heart and a contrite spirit"(See Psalms 51:17; 3 Nephi 5:20; D&C 59:8). Sometimes we need to literally "break" the walls of stone around peoples heart. This is done by boldly proclaiming the truth with the Spirit and power of God. Once the hard heart is shattered, it can be pieced together with the gospel "line upon line, precept upon precept" (2 Nephi 28:30). It takes a lot of work and lot of patience. We also need to make sure we are remaining worthy to have that spirit. Without it, we shall not teach (D&C 42;14).
That is the process we are in right now. Trying to soften and mold peoples hearts with spiritual boldness. Hopefully we see success from it.
Elder Price