Fam,
Edin's baptism was an utter success.
Our Monday lesson with Edin we had planned to finish up some of the final preparations for the baptismal service. It turned out well. He lives with a member family who lives on a pretty sketchy street. What was funny was as we were reviewing our plans before we walked in we saw this guy walking down the middle of the street. I could see something around his neck but thought nothing of it. We continued talking and offered a prayer before heading in. As we finished the prayer the guy was walking by the car and his "necklace" was a 8-10 foot live python. It was pretty gangster. I was only able to grab a picture after he had passed with the car mirror, unfortunately it doesn't give justice to its epic-ness. It's fun to work in the hood.
Friday was our trade off. I went with Elder Wilkins. We had a pretty open day so we just parked the car and walked for a few hours talking with people. Knowing the area so well its pretty convenient. We knocked on about 15 doors and talked with about 10 of them. They were all people I had talked to previously but never was able to teach for one reason or another. It becomes a lot easier to talk with people when you remember what they were interested in but they don't remember the two minute conversation you had with them over a year ago. As an example we talked to this one lady for 10 minutes on the Proclamation to the Family and the blessings that come when families follow the inspired counsel in that document. Unfortunately we weren't able to have a formal lesson or set an appointment but she had a better contact with the church than she had the last time we had talked with her.
We ended the trade-off with a delicious dinner with Teodoro and his family. We presented them with a picture of the Chicago temple with the text on it saying "Eternas pueden ser las familias." They're excited to be sealed as a family in the temple and we even had them sign their names to the framed picture to continue to diligently prepare to be able to have an eternal family.
Saturday we were checking up on the two speakers for Edin's baptism to make sure they were ready. One of the speakers had never spoken in church or anything. He was still super lost but we were able to help formulate a talk and practiced with him for about an hour. In one hour we moved from reading the guide to the scriptures entry on baptism all the way through including the summaries to the cited scriptures to an actually acceptable talk. We even taught him how to bear testimony. So many people don't know how to bear testimony. The talk "Pure Testimony" by Elder Ballard along side the "True to the faith" entry on testimony are such a good resources to help people understand what is and what isn't a testimony appropriate for a church meeting.
"Pure Testimony" by Elder Ballard
"Testimony" from True to the Faith
Sunday was spectacular. The stake president was there to set apart the new branch presidency councilor and Elders Quorum president, something we've waited a while for. It was a great moment. I've learned the absolute necessity of faithful men and the power of priesthood keys. The Stake President served a full time mission in Portugal and tries to speak Spanish and it's nigh unto unintelligible. It's like trying to fit a round dowel into a small triangular whole but using a large hammer to force it through no matter what. But he tries and that's what counts. The New Elders Quorum president was set apart during third hour with everyone present. The stake president did the setting apart but beforehand took a moment to explain the role of priesthood keys. If you have questions on what I mean by Priesthood keys check out true to the faith "priesthood keys" under the section titled "Priesthood."
See "Priesthood Keys" under the topic of "Priesthood
The spirit was so powerful as he, in his - what he calls - Span-guese, explained what it is and their importance. It was a special moment made better because it was shared with two recent converts who are soon to receive the priesthood and three investigating men all who want to be baptized.
About the last month or two we've been praying and fasting a lot for men to come to the Branch either through convert baptisms or new move-ins and that has started to become very fruitful. Daniel has some complications that are being resolved but he is now open that he wants to be baptized once said complications are resolved. His brother José Manuel is going to be baptized August 4th, and we've recently had two convert baptisms. One of the members also had a friend move here for the next 6 months who served a mission, has served in numerous callings including bishop and stake presidents councilor. Momentum is picking up.
The real crazy thing is the power of one. Fransisca, through her own personal conversion has begun sharing the gospel. As fruit of that labor her son was baptized, both her brothers who live here are close or are going to be baptized, and she has introduced us to many of her friends, one of which is currently taking the lessons. As PMG puts it, missionaries "succeed best when members become the source from which new investigators are found" (PMG page 160-161). If only all shared the gospel with the same enthusiasm, or even tried.
Edin's baptism like I mentioned was super good. We had to change the service time due to some scheduling conflicts but after a few hours of calls everyone knew and showed up on time! Another miracle. It's possible that the last two baptisms have been the only two branch activities to start on time haha. It was a spiritual feast and afterwards Edin mentioned that it was way better than he ever expected. Connor, one of the people who taught him with us, performed the baptism and I confirmed him on Sunday.
-eric
Monday, July 23, 2018
July 16, 2018
Fam,
The week went well.
Tuesday we meet with someone who had been recorded in our records as having been interested but never taught from about 5 years ago. We had been calling all the potentials as we were putting them in to our phone. Most people don't pick up but we had a pretty good conversation with her over the phone and set up a time to come by and do some service. We got there and she explained her story. No money, no food, no family, she can't even work, and the city told her she needed to fix some things in her home or she could lose the house. She had got a notice from the city and was at wits end, prayed to God asking for him to send honest people who could help her. She said as she closed her prayer we called. We talked and at the end of the conversation and we asked if there was any service we could do for her. She jumped on the offer and invited us over. We brought the Pectols, who after our visit took her grocery shopping. We are working on a plan to help her out. It always feels really nice to so clearly be an answer to someone else's prayer like we were.
Teodoro had a great spiritual baptismal service with a attendance almost higher than our sacrament services. We pulled out all the stops and called/invited everyone personally and asked them to come 10 minutes early. It actually worked, a true miracle if I've ever seen one. It started at 7 and ended just after 8. We had a bunch of refreshments and at about 9:05pm I realized we hadn't asked anyone to clean up and everyone was still there. Thankfully a few members volunteered to stay, clean, and lock up. Everything went smoothly except the fact that the plug in the baptismal font doesn't tighten and leaks. As the service began I realized we hadn't turned the water back on to add more warm water and to fill it back up to compensate for the leaking. By the time we got to the baptism it had drained to below his knees! Elder Guerrero performed the baptism and was successful in getting him all the way under the water, but that was an un- welcomed surprise.
Edin was interviewed the same day as Teodoro's baptism and things went well. I spoke to him after Teodoro's baptism and he said he was even more excited to have his own baptism.
Sunday afternoon we stopped by to see an investigator who is a little hard to get in contact with. His vision is so impaired that he can't really use his phone, can't drive, and works 13 hours a day (8am-9pm: basically the entire missionary day....... ) 6 days a week. We had a good lesson on the Plan of Salvation. It went super well. He asked the question, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" Instantly I was reminded of the interchange between Aaron and King Lamoni's father in the Book of Mormon when he asked, "What shall I do that I may have this eternal life of which thou hast spoken?" (Alma 22:15, the whole chapter is good but verse 15 has the question) Like I said it was a super good lesson. It can be really easy to under appreciate the knowledge we have of the plan of Salvation, we focused our lesson around physical and spiritual death and how they are overcome. He was just blown away. We hope to teach the rest of his family our next visit.
-eric
The week went well.
Tuesday we meet with someone who had been recorded in our records as having been interested but never taught from about 5 years ago. We had been calling all the potentials as we were putting them in to our phone. Most people don't pick up but we had a pretty good conversation with her over the phone and set up a time to come by and do some service. We got there and she explained her story. No money, no food, no family, she can't even work, and the city told her she needed to fix some things in her home or she could lose the house. She had got a notice from the city and was at wits end, prayed to God asking for him to send honest people who could help her. She said as she closed her prayer we called. We talked and at the end of the conversation and we asked if there was any service we could do for her. She jumped on the offer and invited us over. We brought the Pectols, who after our visit took her grocery shopping. We are working on a plan to help her out. It always feels really nice to so clearly be an answer to someone else's prayer like we were.
Teodoro had a great spiritual baptismal service with a attendance almost higher than our sacrament services. We pulled out all the stops and called/invited everyone personally and asked them to come 10 minutes early. It actually worked, a true miracle if I've ever seen one. It started at 7 and ended just after 8. We had a bunch of refreshments and at about 9:05pm I realized we hadn't asked anyone to clean up and everyone was still there. Thankfully a few members volunteered to stay, clean, and lock up. Everything went smoothly except the fact that the plug in the baptismal font doesn't tighten and leaks. As the service began I realized we hadn't turned the water back on to add more warm water and to fill it back up to compensate for the leaking. By the time we got to the baptism it had drained to below his knees! Elder Guerrero performed the baptism and was successful in getting him all the way under the water, but that was an un- welcomed surprise.
Edin was interviewed the same day as Teodoro's baptism and things went well. I spoke to him after Teodoro's baptism and he said he was even more excited to have his own baptism.
Sunday afternoon we stopped by to see an investigator who is a little hard to get in contact with. His vision is so impaired that he can't really use his phone, can't drive, and works 13 hours a day (8am-9pm: basically the entire missionary day....... ) 6 days a week. We had a good lesson on the Plan of Salvation. It went super well. He asked the question, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" Instantly I was reminded of the interchange between Aaron and King Lamoni's father in the Book of Mormon when he asked, "What shall I do that I may have this eternal life of which thou hast spoken?" (Alma 22:15, the whole chapter is good but verse 15 has the question) Like I said it was a super good lesson. It can be really easy to under appreciate the knowledge we have of the plan of Salvation, we focused our lesson around physical and spiritual death and how they are overcome. He was just blown away. We hope to teach the rest of his family our next visit.
-eric
Monday, July 9, 2018
July 9, 2018
Fam,
Teodoro and Edin are maintaining their progress really well. Teodoro had his baptismal interview Saturday and it turned out positive. The only thing standing between us and the 14th are the programs. Everything is already planned and assigned.
We are still meeting with Edin daily. We've been able to have most of the Branch missionaries involved as well as nearly all the YSA aged members. He is reading well, talking with the members he lives with about the gospel, and has been teaching his family back in Guatemala the things we teach him. Things are about as ideal as they can be.
We did a practice baptisimal interview and he bore his testimony throughout the whole process and it was quite awesome. He got a little hung up on the word of wisdom, he explained the word wisdom instead of the word of wisdom, we clarified things up and he fixed his mistake.
Thursday we meet Elder Barry, the new Spanish elder. We now have 8 missionaries in the Spanish branch. About 30 minutes before they arrived in Grand Rapids we finally finished carving out the area boundaries. The Stake president sent a proposal which we then slightly edited and then shared that with President Brennan.
We've worked a little with the stake president on matters concerning the areas as well as the Branch. He impresses me, his understanding and awareness of the Branch and the stake shows a lot of experience and capability.
Elder Barry and Guerrero have been bunking with us in our apartment since then. Elder Magalei and I cover the northern portion Grand Rapids and everything north of the city in the zone/stake. We likely will be moving to a new apartment so that we don't live like 10 miles outside of our area, so heads up on that. Not sure when that will take place but President said he wants that done as soon as possible.
We had a pretty fun experience with this one lady this week that spotlighted the importance of the spirit in missionary work. We were talking on the door step with this lady we had spoken with a few days earlier. She was busy but we still had an opportunity to talk with her. She didn't seem interested in a lesson so we just kept talking and taught basically the entire restoration on her door step. We had an opportunity to talk about how the restored gospel of Jesus Christ really helps families be happier and have more direction in their lives and that really invited the spirit. We invited her to read Mosiah 2-5 in the book of mormon and think about the question, "how can I have a happier/stronger family." We asked her if we could pray with her and she consented. Elder Magalei offered the prayer and after he closed I asked if we could come back in a few days to talk more about the homework we left her. The spirit was able to touch her heart in such a way to change the "oh I'm busy" into a "please come back."
The Book of Mormon is a super cool book. The doctrine and Covenants is also super cool but that's a different topic. To think that a 20 something year old with 3 years of an education could produce a volume of scripture the length of the Book of Mormon littered with literary complexities, significant biblical parallelism, perfect continuity in theme, story and doctrine, all within 60 days with the kicker being that he dictated it is absolutely insane. Looking at the photos of the original manuscript also brings a level of awe on it own. Aside from the later added punctuation and a handful of scribal errors there isn't a single correction, just straight text. It truly is a marvelous work in a wonder as mentioned in Isaiah 29:14.
The new Preach My Gospel is also super good. In the lesson about The Gospel of Jesus Christ is makes the point that the Book of Mormon contains the clearest presentation of the gospel of Jesus Christ, found anywhere in scripture. I read that and realized it is so true.
Just read any one of the following four chapters in the book of mormon
2 Nephi 31 (pg 113)
Mosiah 18 (pg 181)
3 Nephi 11 (pg 426)
3 Nephi 27 (pg 458)
And try to find a comparison of clarity anywhere in the Bible.
Also when are we going to be able to get a printed copy of the new Preach My Gospel? Preferable the small size.
Teodoro and Edin are maintaining their progress really well. Teodoro had his baptismal interview Saturday and it turned out positive. The only thing standing between us and the 14th are the programs. Everything is already planned and assigned.
We are still meeting with Edin daily. We've been able to have most of the Branch missionaries involved as well as nearly all the YSA aged members. He is reading well, talking with the members he lives with about the gospel, and has been teaching his family back in Guatemala the things we teach him. Things are about as ideal as they can be.
We did a practice baptisimal interview and he bore his testimony throughout the whole process and it was quite awesome. He got a little hung up on the word of wisdom, he explained the word wisdom instead of the word of wisdom, we clarified things up and he fixed his mistake.
Thursday we meet Elder Barry, the new Spanish elder. We now have 8 missionaries in the Spanish branch. About 30 minutes before they arrived in Grand Rapids we finally finished carving out the area boundaries. The Stake president sent a proposal which we then slightly edited and then shared that with President Brennan.
We've worked a little with the stake president on matters concerning the areas as well as the Branch. He impresses me, his understanding and awareness of the Branch and the stake shows a lot of experience and capability.
Elder Barry and Guerrero have been bunking with us in our apartment since then. Elder Magalei and I cover the northern portion Grand Rapids and everything north of the city in the zone/stake. We likely will be moving to a new apartment so that we don't live like 10 miles outside of our area, so heads up on that. Not sure when that will take place but President said he wants that done as soon as possible.
We had a pretty fun experience with this one lady this week that spotlighted the importance of the spirit in missionary work. We were talking on the door step with this lady we had spoken with a few days earlier. She was busy but we still had an opportunity to talk with her. She didn't seem interested in a lesson so we just kept talking and taught basically the entire restoration on her door step. We had an opportunity to talk about how the restored gospel of Jesus Christ really helps families be happier and have more direction in their lives and that really invited the spirit. We invited her to read Mosiah 2-5 in the book of mormon and think about the question, "how can I have a happier/stronger family." We asked her if we could pray with her and she consented. Elder Magalei offered the prayer and after he closed I asked if we could come back in a few days to talk more about the homework we left her. The spirit was able to touch her heart in such a way to change the "oh I'm busy" into a "please come back."
The Book of Mormon is a super cool book. The doctrine and Covenants is also super cool but that's a different topic. To think that a 20 something year old with 3 years of an education could produce a volume of scripture the length of the Book of Mormon littered with literary complexities, significant biblical parallelism, perfect continuity in theme, story and doctrine, all within 60 days with the kicker being that he dictated it is absolutely insane. Looking at the photos of the original manuscript also brings a level of awe on it own. Aside from the later added punctuation and a handful of scribal errors there isn't a single correction, just straight text. It truly is a marvelous work in a wonder as mentioned in Isaiah 29:14.
The new Preach My Gospel is also super good. In the lesson about The Gospel of Jesus Christ is makes the point that the Book of Mormon contains the clearest presentation of the gospel of Jesus Christ, found anywhere in scripture. I read that and realized it is so true.
Just read any one of the following four chapters in the book of mormon
2 Nephi 31 (pg 113)
Mosiah 18 (pg 181)
3 Nephi 11 (pg 426)
3 Nephi 27 (pg 458)
And try to find a comparison of clarity anywhere in the Bible.
Also when are we going to be able to get a printed copy of the new Preach My Gospel? Preferable the small size.
June 25, 2018
Fam,
Well this week was quite the week in a few different ways.
Thursday we had a trip out to Holland. We had two appointments, the first being with a referral from the Holland sisters and the second being a lesson with Mercedes.
We received a call from the Holland sisters explaining that two hispanic guys just showed up to church and that they couldn't communicate with them but that they set up a return appointment for us to meet with them. They called us a little frantically that Sunday afternoon asking if we could join them. Thursday came and we headed to the member's home that the lesson was going to be in and had a great visit with them. Turns out the two guys were actually members who just came up on visas to work for six months. They have a car and seem like really stalwart men who would be a very good influence on the Branch. Their arrival was a big answer to prayer. We put them in contact with the branch leadership and showed them where our Chapel was in Grand Rapids.
Mercedes' lesson was just about ideal. She had some problems with Sabbath day worship that we had been discussing and that wasn't going super well. It wasn't bad, but we weren't doing that great of a job. Unfortunately opening the scriptures to people isn't always the best route to resolve concerns, regardless of scriptural proficiency. Feeling guided we decided to jump over her concerns for a minute and teach more important doctrine. We decided we were going to read 2 Nephi 31 and talk about the gospel of Jesus Christ. Turned out she hadn't read since our last appointment, which is a problem, so we decided to just read where she was. She had gotten stuck in 1 Nephi 13 because of lack of comprehension so we decided to help her get through that chapter. We read up to verse 16 and Elder Magalei asked a really good question about being humble in context of the phrase, "[and they] had humbled themselves before the Lord; and the power of the Lord was with them," which helped spark a good discussion. It helped her open up about some trials going on in her life and family. As she was explaining some things going on I had a clear prompting to invite her to be baptized using the passage in the BOM we had previously planned. I kind of thought about it for a second, thinking about all the doctrinal questions she had and all these things I thought would make her really not ready to say yes, but following the prompting we opened up to 2 Nephi 31 and read verses 4-12. Using verse 12 we made a pretty bold invite and the spirit was super strong. There were a few moments of silence as she recognized the spirit and she let out a quiet yes. It was a really good moment. We had been going at the problem of her doctrinal doubts in the wrong way and thankfully we were open enough to follow the spirit trying to tell us how we really should be handling the problem.
As we drove off I was thinking about that moment and the scripture in Isaiah 55:8-9 came to mind which says
"8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts"
The scripture fit perfectly for what I was thinking in the moment. God always knows best no matter what we think or can rationalize on our own. Our success comes as we yield to the spirit and do missionary work the way it should be done.
Sunday we met with Edin again. He is just a stellar kid. After our first lesson last week the Duran family asked us if we could give them a blessing. It was really good because we had just had a lesson on the restoration where the spirit was quite strong and continued to be during the blessing. Yesterday we had simple lesson where we read a little with him. Our last lesson he said that he knew this was the church for him after a series of spiritual experiences that he shared with us, and that he would prepare to be baptized. Yesterday he explained that while he was sitting in church he had a really strong feeling that he needed to be baptized as soon as he could. It was super cool because he bore a really nice testimony of how he knew these things for himself. We set a date for July 21 and we have a standing appointment everyday until then! Of all the miracles of the mission this one was the one I've hoped for for the longest. The blessing we gave him was very special and we dedicated his apartment right after and it was a sweet moment in every sense possible.
Teodoro is doing pretty well. We've been helping him out a little with his wedding that will be this Saturday! Hoping that everything goes well he should be able to make July 14 for his baptism. There are still a few things that we want to make sure are set in stone before he is baptized but on the other hand he has been steady, consistent and solid for the amount of time I've been in the Branch, so we'll see what we think will be best.
Today I bought some new non-prosyliting shoes. I took off my everyday dress shoes and started trying on some shoes. Elder Magalei was absolutely and thoroughy destracted by the wooden heels. Before I had them resoled you could click the heels together and make a loud clicking sound that would mimic a wood block pretty well, it still does that now but not as loudly, but it was that feature grabbed the attention of Elder Magalei the whole time it took me to pick some shoes. It was pretty humorous.
Well this week was quite the week in a few different ways.
Thursday we had a trip out to Holland. We had two appointments, the first being with a referral from the Holland sisters and the second being a lesson with Mercedes.
We received a call from the Holland sisters explaining that two hispanic guys just showed up to church and that they couldn't communicate with them but that they set up a return appointment for us to meet with them. They called us a little frantically that Sunday afternoon asking if we could join them. Thursday came and we headed to the member's home that the lesson was going to be in and had a great visit with them. Turns out the two guys were actually members who just came up on visas to work for six months. They have a car and seem like really stalwart men who would be a very good influence on the Branch. Their arrival was a big answer to prayer. We put them in contact with the branch leadership and showed them where our Chapel was in Grand Rapids.
Mercedes' lesson was just about ideal. She had some problems with Sabbath day worship that we had been discussing and that wasn't going super well. It wasn't bad, but we weren't doing that great of a job. Unfortunately opening the scriptures to people isn't always the best route to resolve concerns, regardless of scriptural proficiency. Feeling guided we decided to jump over her concerns for a minute and teach more important doctrine. We decided we were going to read 2 Nephi 31 and talk about the gospel of Jesus Christ. Turned out she hadn't read since our last appointment, which is a problem, so we decided to just read where she was. She had gotten stuck in 1 Nephi 13 because of lack of comprehension so we decided to help her get through that chapter. We read up to verse 16 and Elder Magalei asked a really good question about being humble in context of the phrase, "[and they] had humbled themselves before the Lord; and the power of the Lord was with them," which helped spark a good discussion. It helped her open up about some trials going on in her life and family. As she was explaining some things going on I had a clear prompting to invite her to be baptized using the passage in the BOM we had previously planned. I kind of thought about it for a second, thinking about all the doctrinal questions she had and all these things I thought would make her really not ready to say yes, but following the prompting we opened up to 2 Nephi 31 and read verses 4-12. Using verse 12 we made a pretty bold invite and the spirit was super strong. There were a few moments of silence as she recognized the spirit and she let out a quiet yes. It was a really good moment. We had been going at the problem of her doctrinal doubts in the wrong way and thankfully we were open enough to follow the spirit trying to tell us how we really should be handling the problem.
As we drove off I was thinking about that moment and the scripture in Isaiah 55:8-9 came to mind which says
"8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts"
The scripture fit perfectly for what I was thinking in the moment. God always knows best no matter what we think or can rationalize on our own. Our success comes as we yield to the spirit and do missionary work the way it should be done.
Sunday we met with Edin again. He is just a stellar kid. After our first lesson last week the Duran family asked us if we could give them a blessing. It was really good because we had just had a lesson on the restoration where the spirit was quite strong and continued to be during the blessing. Yesterday we had simple lesson where we read a little with him. Our last lesson he said that he knew this was the church for him after a series of spiritual experiences that he shared with us, and that he would prepare to be baptized. Yesterday he explained that while he was sitting in church he had a really strong feeling that he needed to be baptized as soon as he could. It was super cool because he bore a really nice testimony of how he knew these things for himself. We set a date for July 21 and we have a standing appointment everyday until then! Of all the miracles of the mission this one was the one I've hoped for for the longest. The blessing we gave him was very special and we dedicated his apartment right after and it was a sweet moment in every sense possible.
Teodoro is doing pretty well. We've been helping him out a little with his wedding that will be this Saturday! Hoping that everything goes well he should be able to make July 14 for his baptism. There are still a few things that we want to make sure are set in stone before he is baptized but on the other hand he has been steady, consistent and solid for the amount of time I've been in the Branch, so we'll see what we think will be best.
Today I bought some new non-prosyliting shoes. I took off my everyday dress shoes and started trying on some shoes. Elder Magalei was absolutely and thoroughy destracted by the wooden heels. Before I had them resoled you could click the heels together and make a loud clicking sound that would mimic a wood block pretty well, it still does that now but not as loudly, but it was that feature grabbed the attention of Elder Magalei the whole time it took me to pick some shoes. It was pretty humorous.
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