Week of April 28, 2014

Hello Hello! So it'll be another 6 weeks in Del City coming up! I'll still be with Elder C it looks like, so that will be exciting as well!

 

This week was a really good one! It FLEW by though- it was crazy! Tuesday we were visiting one of our investigators, D. He's a nice guy! He's a seeker of truth. He gets sick of a lot of the religions out here because they teach a lot about Revelations and the end of the world, and he wants to know how he can live more like Christ. He also said he sees stickers all over the place that say,  "Invite someone to church this month" but we're the only one of any of the hundreds of churches around that have actually done it. So he's excited and progressing slowly but surely. We set a baptismal date for May 24th with him. It's a great goal to work towards.

 

Wednesday was a bit of a longer day. Not much happened. I got to do a baptismal interview for a 14 year old girl though! The other elders in our ward are teaching their family. The dad is a member, but his wife and 2 daughters weren't, but they've been going to church with him for a long time. Anyways the youngest daughter decided it was time for her to get baptized, so we're hoping her mom and sister will want to follow her example! It was fun though. She has a great understanding for a 14 year old!

 

Thursday night was awesome! We taught 2 families. One is a family of at least 6 (there might be a couple more kids we've missed the 2 times we've been over there) and the other is a family of 5. The family of 6 has a ton of potential! We can see them becoming members of the church eventually, and we're hoping that we're the ones who get to help them with that! The other family is nice, but they aren't really too excited about religion in general so we'll see.

 

Friday was fun. I was on exchanges with Elder V. He's a great guy! We had a good time! We were able to teach K. She's doing great! She hadn't been to church in a couple weeks and right when we sit down she said, "I feel awful I haven't been to church!" We had a great lesson with her and she's still on board to be baptized on the 10th! She still needs to get married though, but we hope that will happen.

 

Saturday and Sunday were awesome! We saw C and K. They were the ones we were teaching and they split up after a fight. Well they're back together. On Saturday they were in another little argument, but we taught the Doctrine of Christ and that settled them down. We went back on Sunday and they took the Doctrine of Christ to heart! They didn't even look like the same couple! We set a baptismal date with them for June 28th, and at the end C prayed about that date to know if it was the right one. She broke down in tears and we all felt like it was the right date! It was a super powerful moment!

 

Well, I gotta get going, but I just want everyone to know that I know this is the Lord's work, and I'm thankful for the chance I have to be a part of it! Have a great week and we'll try to do the same!

 

PS  We haven't had any tornados around me yet, so nothing to worry about! Haha

Week of April 21, 2014

Hope everyone had a happy Easter! We had a good one out here! We had a great turnout at church.... Apparently there are a lot of "Easter and Christmas" only Mormons out here.... Haha but we were glad they came! We had to sit on the stage in the gym in the back actually. The chapel here is super skinny though, and the court is width not length in the overflow, so there was probably like around 275 people. It was cool!

 

We were sitting down and this black guy walked in and took a seat. After the sacrament a member came back to us with him and said, "He would like to talk to you." So we went to another room and sat down and he said his name was T and he had been to 2 or 3 other churches that morning and he got kicked out of both of them. He was walking down the street and saw ours so he came in. He said he loved the service, and he wanted to be baptized! And so we talked to him a little more and he told us a little bit about himself. He has had a rough life and he's looking for a better life. He said he feels safe and at home in our church and he wants to join. He seemed a little.... interesting.... so we'll see what happens, but it seemed like a pretty sweet miracle! Hopefully it all works out! He was a hoot though! He brought the Southern Baptist to the gospel principles class! Haha- it was great! The lesson was on the Priesthood, and he kept saying, "Amen!" The teacher asked,  "Can you get to heaven without being baptized?" and he was like "No, man,  no!" It was just too cool! He volunteered for everything too! So we had a good time with him. We hope he comes back!

 

Other than that not too much else has happened. The couple we had a super powerful lesson with a few weeks ago has gotten back together, so we're going to start working with them again on Wednesday! Hopefully their marriage will be able to hold up so we can keep working with them! We'll see though. K is going to get baptized on May 10th. She's doing extremely well and is very excited about it! We also started teaching a family that seems to be pretty humble, so hopefully they'll progress here soon as well! We have a pretty good teaching pool now of 25 investigators, and it keeps growing. We just need to see a few more progress. We seem to be dropping them as fast as we're finding them lately. Haha but we'll keep it up.

 

Well, hope everyone has a good week this week! I'm thankful for all the support from everyone back home! It's much appreciated!

Week of April 14, 2014

Hello hello hello!

So I hope all has gone as well for you as it has for me this last week! Life has truly been good! We got a car from the mission because my companion tore a couple ligaments in his ankle playing basketball a couple weeks ago. Our area is so small that we finish everything in like 2 hours, so we've been scratching our heads a lot on how to be more effective. But until he can actually walk and not have to use crutches it might be tough. But we're still seeing miracles!

I guess first of all though I better say thanks to the Relief Society for the letters! I appreciated it and I'm sure all the other missionaries did as well! Except I'm freaking out a little that I leave for a few months and they change the name of the ward. But I guess that's not the worst thing in the world.

So for how great of a week it was there's not a ton to report on. We had a interesting experience on Thursday. We knocked on this lady's door and while we were talking to her she lost her balance and fell. She broke her hip I guess and she hit her head.... She had her Life Alert on her though! So she hit her life alert and the dispatcher said, "This is Brian from Life Alert, what's your emergency?" And she told him she fell and he was like, "Ok ma'am, help is on the way! Are you ok? What hurts?" Then she told him and he was like,  "Ok ma'am, help is on the way!" At the end of everything he said he always said, "Help is on the way!" She's ok though. It was an awkward and sad situation.

We had a lesson with one of our investigators that's been taught since last September, and she has been waiting to get married before she gets baptized. So we were talking to her and found out she's getting married this weekend, and she can't wait to get baptized! So we'll probably end up baptizing her either on the 26th or May 10th. So that was exciting!

We also had a scare this week. We saw C, a recent convert who has been on fire since his baptism in February, on Thursday and he told us he was having doubts and was really confused, and he didn't really know or think that the church was true anymore. It was a huge miracle though because he was able to come to the entire 3 hours of church on Sunday (which is huge because he is on call  24/7 and I've never been with him for longer than 20 minutes without him getting a call) and we were able to meet with him with Bro. G for about 2 hours last night. He's got things figured out now and knows that the world is confusion and the church is clarity. It was a super huge miracle!

Sunday was the bomb! Besides C being at church, we also had a super powerful testimony meeting! And a member brought a friend last week to the church to watch conference. Well her friend must have felt something because he woke up early in the morning and drove over 150 miles from his lake house to make it to church! It was awesome! The member caught us in the hall and said she wants us to teach him, and she said, "Thank you so much for the sacrifices you make to be here. M has been a close family friend since I was little and he really just needs this in his life right now. So thank you so much for being here to help him!" She was like bawling as she said that. It was so humbling! The work we're involved in is so special!

Well the last thing I'll share is a cool thing I learned from the scriptures. I've been pondering a ton about the gospel, or Doctrine of Christ. For some reason the scripture Ether 12:27 kept popping in my mind. So I flipped to it and started thinking about it. The process in that scripture is perfect. "If men come unto me I will show them their weakness." We obtain an errand from the Lord on how we can improve, and then we humble ourselves and realize that's an area we can work on. I love that it says weakness and not weaknesses, because that's exactly how I became the basketball player I am, one area at a time. I still remember that one day after practice when me, my dad, and D just worked on the form of my shot for 2 hours. I went from elbow to elbow just working on my form, the little things. Until that part of my game was consistent, we didn't focus specifically on too much else. That's how Christ works- one problem at a time. He'll give us exactly what we can handle! 

The next step is to believe that we can overcome it through Christ, and change or repent. I've been thinking a lot about how the sacrament plays a role for us as missionaries, but also for all of us as members. I was taken back to what one of my institute teachers taught us once. When we partake of the sacrament, we're renewing our covenants. However we should work one area at a time. We have a forest of trees to chop down, and so we need to take it one at a time. When we partake of the sacrament we get to seriously ponder about what our errand is, and then we get the chance to take that to the Lord and covenant with Him that you will work on that area of your life. After we do so we receive a greater portion of His spirit to help us achieve these righteous desires. I was thinking a ton about the symbolism of the sacrament. We partake of the bread and water to remind us His body was literally broken and torn, and that his blood was literally spilt so that we can improve and overcome our weaknesses. I think about that and He must be frustrated if I don't take a specific weakness I'm working on to improve because that's why he went through what he went through. It will take time, but that's why He did what He did. When that area of our lives becomes a strength over time, we can move on and start working on the next tree in the forest of weaknesses I have to chop down. I now understand exactly how the Doctrine of Christ applies in my life, and what I can do to better myself! It finally clicked with me this week on how to actually live the gospel.

Well, sorry I haven't been too consistent lately in my writing. The emailing at this library is interesting. But I hope you all have a good week! Enjoy your normal weather there. It was like 90 degrees here Saturday, then yesterday we were in a tornado watch all day and had a crazy hail storm (it was super short though). Then this morning it was like 30 degrees and sleeting/hailing. So yeah. It's been crazy here! haha. Have a good one! Love ya!