Well guys, we've been doing pretty good over here in sunny California. I'm getting along well with my new companion. He's like a Texan peice of steel. He told me he doesn't like doing pull ups because they are too easy and it's like jogging for him. We're about the same height, so I think we just intimadate people into letting us in. Ocassionaly people think we are the FBI. But we do pretty good work together. Our district is pretty new too, and I really like these guys.
That guy that I told that miraculous story about last week faced some opposition from his family, and for awhile I thought we lost him, but I think he's back on the right track now. Which makes me very happy.
I do enjoy it down here in Cali. We're having success and I like it. I love how each week we play soccer with a bunch of latinos and they kill us every time. It's kinda cool, they all put on their Jerseys and pretend to be injured just like the pros. I also have the best mall in the mission in my area so me and my district go there on pdays and eat chipotle and pretend to shop. It's pretty nice. My life is good.
Well, that was short, but I hope you all enjoyed it.
Elder Call
P.S.
Dear Karrine Manning,
I lost your adress, and for that have not written you in a long time. Is there any way you can get it to me? Sorry about that...
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Monday, March 19, 2012
Story time
Wow. This last week was the best of my mission. I'm going to relate to you a story.
A little background: a couple of weeks before this me and my companion kind of made a deal with the lord that we were pretty much gonna work really hard and the lord would reward our efforts with 2 baptismal dates. The time to complete this deal was almost up, and we had one guy, a really good friend of ours, and probably my favorite person in a 10 mile radius, agree to be baptised. That was a miracle in and of itself, and I was more than satisfied with that, but then this happened:
So Saturday night it was cold and rainy. We took one of the members of the ward, pat, out with us to go visit a few people. We all get in the car at like 7 o'clock and my companion says that we should pray about who to visit before we left. We prayed, and my companion thought that we should go and visit a guy named Javier, who is one of our weakest contacts. He felt really stupid saying this, but he says that the spirit told him something along the lines of "Don't counsel me". I thought it was a dumb idea but I rolled with it anyway.
We get to driving, and on the way there I thought to myself about one of Javier's neighbors, a lady named Juana that the sister missionaries had taught but we had never met. For some reason the thought of knocking on her door just really excited me. So we decided to go there instead.
We get to the door, pitch dark, rain falling on our heads, and this guy opens the door and we see that the whole family is together. We ask for the lady, Juana, but she says that she doesn't know us and doesn't want to talk to us. The guy at the door is kind of rude to us, and he says goodbye and almost shuts the door. At that moment, Pat, the convert who's been in the church for 3 months and is also preparing for his mission, says something like, "Well you opened the door, didn't you? Would you like to talk to us?" And the guy says, "sure, why not?"
He comes out with his raincoat and umbrella while we just stand there shivering. We start talking, and don't ask me how we got on this subject but we talk about how he is having a hard time with his girlfriend and he asks us all for advice. We all take turns giving our opinions, Pat even pulls out a scripture in Proverbs that relates to this, and somewhere along the way, Alex (The guy) says that he notices that Mormons are always so happy and that he really wants to be like that. He asks us what he needs to do to become a Mormon, and my companion looks at him and smiles, "What a wonderful question."
After talking for about an hour or maybe an hour and a half, Alex agreed to be baptized on April 8th. He also said that we changed his life and that he wants to go on a mission when he graduates high school.
WE MAKE JOKES ABOUT THIS SORT OF THING! Like if we're contacting as a group, and two groups of missionaries meet on the street we say, "How'd it go?" and the other one will say "Oh yeah, he agreed to a baptismal date," AND THEY BOTH LAUGH. Can you believe that? How God led us to that guy, and how all three of us had to be sensitive to make it happen? I also grew to love that guy in the space of an hour, for obvious reasons. He even took off his cross! We told him that having a cross wasn't a sin but he took it off anyway.
I was completely blown away. The interesting part is that when we made that deal with the lord we didn't quite complete with our part, but the lord still gave us this. I tell you what, I'm gonna be faithful with this sort of thing from now on. I'm not messing around after what happened.
Well, on a far less exciting note, due to a complicated situation my companion, Elder Souza, is getting transferred to be a Zone Leader, but I will stay in Burbank. I'm getting a Missionary named Elder Fike, who I can already tell I'm gonna get along with. This guy's awesome. But Elder Souza was probably the best missionary I've seen so far. I'm sad to see the guy go. We would play soccer and he would always kill everybody because he was Brazillian. Ah, good times. I'm going to have a hard time topping this transfer.
I love you all! Stay on the straight and narrow!
A little background: a couple of weeks before this me and my companion kind of made a deal with the lord that we were pretty much gonna work really hard and the lord would reward our efforts with 2 baptismal dates. The time to complete this deal was almost up, and we had one guy, a really good friend of ours, and probably my favorite person in a 10 mile radius, agree to be baptised. That was a miracle in and of itself, and I was more than satisfied with that, but then this happened:
So Saturday night it was cold and rainy. We took one of the members of the ward, pat, out with us to go visit a few people. We all get in the car at like 7 o'clock and my companion says that we should pray about who to visit before we left. We prayed, and my companion thought that we should go and visit a guy named Javier, who is one of our weakest contacts. He felt really stupid saying this, but he says that the spirit told him something along the lines of "Don't counsel me". I thought it was a dumb idea but I rolled with it anyway.
We get to driving, and on the way there I thought to myself about one of Javier's neighbors, a lady named Juana that the sister missionaries had taught but we had never met. For some reason the thought of knocking on her door just really excited me. So we decided to go there instead.
We get to the door, pitch dark, rain falling on our heads, and this guy opens the door and we see that the whole family is together. We ask for the lady, Juana, but she says that she doesn't know us and doesn't want to talk to us. The guy at the door is kind of rude to us, and he says goodbye and almost shuts the door. At that moment, Pat, the convert who's been in the church for 3 months and is also preparing for his mission, says something like, "Well you opened the door, didn't you? Would you like to talk to us?" And the guy says, "sure, why not?"
He comes out with his raincoat and umbrella while we just stand there shivering. We start talking, and don't ask me how we got on this subject but we talk about how he is having a hard time with his girlfriend and he asks us all for advice. We all take turns giving our opinions, Pat even pulls out a scripture in Proverbs that relates to this, and somewhere along the way, Alex (The guy) says that he notices that Mormons are always so happy and that he really wants to be like that. He asks us what he needs to do to become a Mormon, and my companion looks at him and smiles, "What a wonderful question."
After talking for about an hour or maybe an hour and a half, Alex agreed to be baptized on April 8th. He also said that we changed his life and that he wants to go on a mission when he graduates high school.
WE MAKE JOKES ABOUT THIS SORT OF THING! Like if we're contacting as a group, and two groups of missionaries meet on the street we say, "How'd it go?" and the other one will say "Oh yeah, he agreed to a baptismal date," AND THEY BOTH LAUGH. Can you believe that? How God led us to that guy, and how all three of us had to be sensitive to make it happen? I also grew to love that guy in the space of an hour, for obvious reasons. He even took off his cross! We told him that having a cross wasn't a sin but he took it off anyway.
I was completely blown away. The interesting part is that when we made that deal with the lord we didn't quite complete with our part, but the lord still gave us this. I tell you what, I'm gonna be faithful with this sort of thing from now on. I'm not messing around after what happened.
Well, on a far less exciting note, due to a complicated situation my companion, Elder Souza, is getting transferred to be a Zone Leader, but I will stay in Burbank. I'm getting a Missionary named Elder Fike, who I can already tell I'm gonna get along with. This guy's awesome. But Elder Souza was probably the best missionary I've seen so far. I'm sad to see the guy go. We would play soccer and he would always kill everybody because he was Brazillian. Ah, good times. I'm going to have a hard time topping this transfer.
I love you all! Stay on the straight and narrow!
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Representative of Jesus Christ
Hey guys!
This week has been amazing. We decided we were going to step up our game as missionaries by making little mini covenants with the Lord. We kind of promise to do something and ask for a result from the Lord. It seems to be working really well. I guess now I really know how willing the lord is to bless us. Like 15 minutes after we decided to start doing that we got a call from a less active girl we're trying to get to go to church, and she scheduled a lesson with us.
A really tender thing happened with that. She talked about how she didn't feel like she was worthy to pray to god and go to church. After we said a prayer, we said something to her along these lines. "As representatives of Jesus Christ, we have the responsibility to say what he would say if he were here. God told me to tell you that he's not mad at you, and if you go back he will welcome you with open arms. Not only that, but he will help you every step of the way." It was very spiritual. I almost cried.
So if you are in that situation, I'm pretty sure those same words would apply to you.
I'm out of time, unfortunately. I wish you all the best! Stay strong, Move on!
This week has been amazing. We decided we were going to step up our game as missionaries by making little mini covenants with the Lord. We kind of promise to do something and ask for a result from the Lord. It seems to be working really well. I guess now I really know how willing the lord is to bless us. Like 15 minutes after we decided to start doing that we got a call from a less active girl we're trying to get to go to church, and she scheduled a lesson with us.
A really tender thing happened with that. She talked about how she didn't feel like she was worthy to pray to god and go to church. After we said a prayer, we said something to her along these lines. "As representatives of Jesus Christ, we have the responsibility to say what he would say if he were here. God told me to tell you that he's not mad at you, and if you go back he will welcome you with open arms. Not only that, but he will help you every step of the way." It was very spiritual. I almost cried.
So if you are in that situation, I'm pretty sure those same words would apply to you.
I'm out of time, unfortunately. I wish you all the best! Stay strong, Move on!
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Fear Not
Hey Guys!
We had a really good week this week. We got a lot of stuff done.
Also, I love the food that these Latinos make for us. It's frankly fantastic. But, I guess that I reached that point in every missionary's career where he has to eat something gross. Yeah, I ate some chipulines. Those are grasshoppers. I admit, after I tasted one, they aren't that bad, they put lime and chile on them. but I still ate a creature that I thought was only fit for survivorman.
I guess the spiritual thing that happened to me this week was that I woke up one morning and just felt down in the dumps. My hands were down by my knees and my feet were dragging. My shoulders were round, all that jazz. So, like a good missionary, I got on my knees and prayed. Somehow, by the end of that plea to god, I stood up feeling ecstatic. Which is very important, because people are way more likely to let you into their houses when you don't look like you want to hurt them, which apparently happens to me sometimes.
So yeah guys, this is how God works. We do what we can, and he'll bear us up the rest of the way. Like the song says, "Fear not, I am with thee, o be not dismayed, for I am thy god, and will still give thee aid. I strengthen thee, help thee and cause thee to stand. Upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand."
That is one of my favorite songs. I sing it a couple times a day usually.
So I feel pretty optimistic about everything. Maybe if I'm lucky, one of these transfers I'll get moved up to the mountains. I just can't get used to the LA nature sounds. I'm gonna buy some earplugs today to block out all the sirens and speeding cars. Yeah, that was a bit of a tangent, but I hear sirens right now.
So, everyone, be happy!
Editor's note:I love grasshoppers...
We had a really good week this week. We got a lot of stuff done.
Also, I love the food that these Latinos make for us. It's frankly fantastic. But, I guess that I reached that point in every missionary's career where he has to eat something gross. Yeah, I ate some chipulines. Those are grasshoppers. I admit, after I tasted one, they aren't that bad, they put lime and chile on them. but I still ate a creature that I thought was only fit for survivorman.
I guess the spiritual thing that happened to me this week was that I woke up one morning and just felt down in the dumps. My hands were down by my knees and my feet were dragging. My shoulders were round, all that jazz. So, like a good missionary, I got on my knees and prayed. Somehow, by the end of that plea to god, I stood up feeling ecstatic. Which is very important, because people are way more likely to let you into their houses when you don't look like you want to hurt them, which apparently happens to me sometimes.
So yeah guys, this is how God works. We do what we can, and he'll bear us up the rest of the way. Like the song says, "Fear not, I am with thee, o be not dismayed, for I am thy god, and will still give thee aid. I strengthen thee, help thee and cause thee to stand. Upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand."
That is one of my favorite songs. I sing it a couple times a day usually.
So I feel pretty optimistic about everything. Maybe if I'm lucky, one of these transfers I'll get moved up to the mountains. I just can't get used to the LA nature sounds. I'm gonna buy some earplugs today to block out all the sirens and speeding cars. Yeah, that was a bit of a tangent, but I hear sirens right now.
So, everyone, be happy!
Editor's note:I love grasshoppers...
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