December 23, 2017

Fam,

Two days to Christmas countdown. It's going to be so weird to skype haha. 

Tuesday we had a great trade-off. I went with the soon to be late Elder Wall. We had planned a good long day of finding people to teach. We were able to walk a few miles through Little Mexico which was fun and more or less productive.

Wednesday we got a call from someone we had talked with about two weeks prior. We meet this lady after we got stood up at an appointment and were walking around to see if there was anyone in the area we could talk with. We started talking with her and offered some service and were able to rake her lawn. We had a good conversation with her and shared "Light the World" with her. 

Light the World---learn more about it (great videos and ideas for making Christmas more meaningful)

She asked us if we could help her to delivered some Christmas packages with the community organization she represented. We jumped on the service opportunity and meet her at this random retirement community. It turned out to be really fun. We delivered Hams, pastries, and Christmas packages to a bunch of people.  

The same day I also felt inspired to study "Living water" as found in the scriptures. Throughout the simple study I was thinking about spiritual self-reliance. My favorite scripture from that study was found in D&C 63:23 which says, "But unto him that keepeth my commandments I will give the mysteries of my kingdom, and the same shall be in him a well of living water, springing up unto everlasting life." Obedience is prerequisite for most of the blessings in the gospel, but what I found interesting is symbolically the well of living water source is from within someone. One can go to church and have to appearance of being spiritually powerful, however more important is the little achievements one does privately. Gaining a strong testimony or praying daily is not something public, but these things are personal achievements that lead to large and important consequences. Once you stop doing the little things it's like you stopped watering a plant, it doesn't immediately die but will slowly loses its strength and withers. Your faith decreases and you lose the understanding or testimony you may have had at one point. We had a great experience this week catching a member who is going through some trials with their faith and we were able to read with them. Just reading with members can be surprisingly important to helping members build their faith. 

Zone conference was Thursday. It was really, really good as usual. President Brennan's remarks are almost always the highlight. He spoke on angels and their role in God's work as well as miracles. He pulled examples from almost all the standard works including, the Bible, Book of Mormon, and the Doctrine & Covenants. It was really interesting and he made the point that God works in one way and that doesn't change. We also watched clips from the Christmas story film "The Nativity." It was really interesting but the acting was not that great. On top of the acting the Angel Gabriel was a little freaky. Elder Wall made the joke that when people have angelic experiences they tend to be scared at first and that this was why. 

Friday we had the first practice for "Oh Holy Night" with the Reed family. I'm accompanying them on the piano and it sounds pretty good. 

(That is the reaction from Eric's Mom and blog editor about him playing the piano!)

Turns out when you ask someone if they can count when they don't have a musical background to know that you mean beats in a measure when it's 6/8, they might be slightly offended. Oops haha.  

27 November 2017

fam,

We meet with the Francos like three times a week. It's pretty great. We've had a series of really good lessons with them and they are progressing decently. Unfortunately, December 23 won't be met. Marco wants to be baptized but there are some things we have to work on and they have to work on before baptism that will likely take some more time than we have so they took themselves off date. We were able to talk about everything going on and set some goals to keep them progressing. On another day we went over to learn how to make tortillas and horchata. First off they both turned out so good. The members and the people we work with keep their recipes under lock and key, although "recipe" is a pretty loose term. Cooking here is more like "a little this and a little of that" with zero measurements, I took loose notes. The tortillas were pretty hard, probably took me about 10 tries to get the pressed masa from tortilla press to grill, the darn thing kept tearing. They also gifted us a tortilla press. We have already put it to good use. 

Tuesday was good. I had a good trade off with Elder Rencher. They have an investigator getting baptized who is finally getting baptized. She is so awesome. I remember my very first trade off when I met her and thought she was a member. Her situation didn't allow her to be baptized but after many months of working hard she was able to get away from a bad situation that wouldn't allow her to be baptized. The interview process is really simple. There are a set of defined questions that are designed to make sure the person who wants to be baptized understands what they are doing and are willing to live according to the standards by which they promise to live by. President Brennan came to give the interview and I "translated". It was pretty great. We walked into the bishop's little office and President Brennan just asked me to do the interview, he added a few questions and then we closed in prayer. All went smoothly.  

Friday the church launched "Light the World". I'm really impressed with how it has turned out. I wasn't in the loop last year but apparently it's pretty similar. The basic premise is that you do some type of service every day leading up to Christmas to help people remember why we celebrate Christmas and get people in the true spirit of Christmas. It's based on 25 different things Christ said or taught and the video the church put up is stellar. 

Light the World videos

Unfortunately the Westons return home on the fourth. They spoke in church on Sunday and it was really good. They are both such good examples. They definitely make me want to serve a senior mission when I'm old. Elder Weston shared an insight that I liked in his talk, he said that church is a tool and the gospel is the way of life. A lot of people tell us that the either don't believe in religion but believe in God or don't believe in organized religion. Their point makes a little sense if the only reason you go to church is to study the bible and or go to some social gathering. The sacrament is why we go to church. It's the way we can recharge our spiritual batteries for the week and receive forgiveness for the sins from the previous week and recommit to be a little bit better the next week. We then take what we learn in church and apply it in the coming week. Application of the gospel is crucial. If you don't apply it, it is of no worth. Alma 41 makes an interesting point on application. 

My Book of Mormon reading has been going pretty well. I'm coming up at the end of the Book of Alma. I don't think I've read through the war chapters so fast. There is no doubt that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. It's super awesome. No one can dictate a book of this level or close in under 90 days (or at all) while having other responsibilities like raising a family, protecting said family from mobs, moving from state to state and other crazy stuff like that. Aside from the confirmation of the spirit of its truth there is no other explanation for such a book. Yes, it's different from the Bible. No Revelation 22:19 is not referring to the still uncompiled Bible, and yes God can reveal more of his word and has through living day prophets and the Book of Mormon. Read it and study it daily. It's pretty good. 

-eric