Monday, February 24, 2014

Week of February 24, 2014

Tyler's view of Oklahoma City

There's not a ton to report on this week. It was a good week, but nothing too exciting happened. I learned a ton this week though! We had a mission wide district leader training, and I learned a ton from that. I got to be companions for the day with Elder Anderson, my last district leader. He's from Danville up in Nor Cal. He's become a great friend! So we had a great time together!
 
So I guess I'll talk about my sweet learning opportunities this week! Most of it was from our movie night we had saturday evening. We watched 17 Miracles. That movie is super powerful! We had a member invite a friend, which made it worth it! But I learned so much from it! I thought it was amazing that every single prayer that was offered by those saints, who had nothing, they were suffering beyond belief, and were barely alive, all started by thanking God for something. Most of the time it was thanking God for the gospel that allows us to have so much. All the miracles that came were from prayers of gratitude. It built my faith in the power of gratitude! I know when things get hard for me I start by begging for help, when really I need to be thankful for all that I have. I have been blessed with many things! Anyways that's my thought of the week.
 
Well, not much else to say. Sorry, been a really slow week! I've been battling a cold too, which hasn't been too fun. But this really was a week of growth! It's been great!
 
Hope everyone has a great week back home! Thanks for the support!

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Week of February 17, 2014


This week was.... interesting. Haha it was really long, but really good! It was just weird. Almost nothing happened. Every door we knocked, no one was interested. Every investigator we try, no one was home, or they were sick and couldn't talk, or their dog died and they didn't want to talk. It was just frustrating. So that was rough, but I had a good time!
 
On Thursday night all of our plans had fallen through, so we went to a Prayer Night at a nondenominational church that we were invited to. It was fun! It was at the Pastor's house, so we go in (we were the only white people there) and sit down and they were doing some gospel singing, then the pastor starts preaching a bit, then he prays for about 25 minutes. It was interesting..... He was praying to "Lord Father God Jehovah Jesus". One of my favorite parts was when he was going on about grace in the prayer and he said, "We know it's not the yellow lines on the road that keep the cars from crossing over into our side of the road, but it's your grace! Your grace Lord!" He also said,  "Father hedge up those who put their life aside to go out and do your missionary work, and tell others about your grace and love and mercy, and bring them to you!" and he was knuckle touching with us. It was awesome! Haha there were people speaking in tongues and praisin Jesus all over. It was super fun! We really want to go back and do it again!
 
On Friday I was able to give a training on faith. It really opened my eyes to how little I knew about faith. It has been a great study topic for me. It's really made me rethink my whole look on things. Do I trust God will open up the windows of Heaven to the point where I will pay tithing when I have no money at all, or do I really just think it's a cool idea, but it's not for me? Do I live the Word of Wisdom because God has promised blessings because of it, or do I just push it aside so that I can go ahead and live how I want to live. Faith is more than believing that keeping the commandments will bless us, but it's actually living the commandments, showing that we fully believe that God will hold up his end of the promise. How many people that Christ said "rise, take up thy bed and walk" just kinda sat there and looked at him like, "Cool, but in case I'm not healed I'll just keep laying here. Thanks for that though!" Nope they all got up and walked and showed that they believed they were healed! Anyways, that was just my thoughts on faith this week.
 
Later that day I was on an exchange with Elder Nielson (he's from Orlando, and went to Winterpark High School! Which is funny because that's where Austin Rivers went, and it's the only high school in Orlando I know, so when I asked him what high school he went to that would have been the only one I knew. Anyways, just interesting fact!) in Choctaw, Oklahoma! Actually it's considered Harrah, Oklahoma, the part we were in... Anyways we were striking out left and right, trying to find anyone to talk to. We were knocking doors in one neighborhood and we see this guy walk out to his front yard. My first instinct was to go talk to him, but the closer I looked I noticed he had a pitchfork and a .22 in his hands. Haha he was trying to kill a gopher or something, but I decided not to talk to him because the early saints already dealt with plenty of people who had pitchforks and guns, and that's what got them driven out of Missouri and Illinois and Ohio. So if it didn't go over well for them I figured how am I different... Haha it was funny though he basically was a one man mob! There was no danger we just had a good laugh about that.
 
That was about it for me this week. I will admit that on Sunday I was pretty much done with being a missionary. I was thinking, "Why have I not been able to get one person to come to church? Why is it my entire mission no one has come to church? I taught more people back home than I am out here. I invited people to church back home and no one came there. So why am I here? I could do more good being back home, sharing the gospel there. Why am I here?" It was a rough day. But it caused me to really ponder why I am here. I got the same assurance, not as strong, but strong enough to help me understand that I am exactly where I need to be, and I'm doing exactly what I need to be doing. So I guess I'm going to keep pluggin along doing what I need to do so that I can make it through. Something will happen sometime! If nothing else I've grown so much out here that it's unbelievable. And I have been able to recognize how much farther I can go, and how much better I can be. That to me is super exciting! I'm loving the fact of how much I can progress!
 
Well fam/friends, that's all there is for me here. Have a good week wherever you may be! Love you all tons! Keep up the fight! 

Monday, February 10, 2014

Week of February 10, 2014- Transfers!


How's it going back home? Sorry I wasn't able to get an email to you last week, and this week's will be short because I'm low on time, but I'll do what I can!
 
So the move went smoothly. I said goodbye to some good friends I made in the Blanchard Ward area, but I'm excited to start my time here in Del City. It's going to be good! The ward has 3 sets of missionaries- 2 sets of elders and a set of sisters. The other elders in the ward are zone leaders, so it will be good to share the ward with them! Del City is kinda a little ghetto, but it will be exciting! I'm actually really loving it here so far!
 
I'm still trying to learn the new area. I'm starting to get a grasp on where things are. I'm in a bike area, but because the weather has been so cold, and there's still quite a bit of ice on the roads and sidewalks,  we've been walking about 10 miles a day at least. But it's been good! We're having some good success here already! The weather is supposed to get a little nasty tonight and tomorrow though, so we'll see how this next week goes.
 
Not much else to say. We had a pretty cool experience on Friday. We were talking to a less active member. He and his wife found out that their son had a girlfriend 20 years ago, and that they had a grandson they didn't know about. He's living with them for a little while. He came out while we were talking to the parents, so I looked over and asked him what his name was, and got to know a little bit more about him. We asked him if he'd be interested in hearing our message, and he accepted pretty openly! So we taught him the restoration, and he said it totally makes sense and he really likes what we taught. He said that he really liked the great apostasy part because he always figured that's why there are so many denominations. He's a sharp kid! But he accepted to prepare to be baptized on March 22nd! It was a sweet lesson!
 
That's about it here for me. Most of this week has been visiting members and trying to get to know them. We have a recent convert here who got the Aaronic Priesthood yesterday. He's super hungry to know more! It was pretty sweet! That's about it for me here though!
 
Hope you have a great week back in home! The church is true! Love ya!