4/24/17

fam and friends,

Last Monday was spent helping some of the people I talked about last week. We spent the whole day outside emailing helping two people who are really struggling in their situations. We had an amazing meal as usual with a member who we found out runs a food service out of her home. She only really does it for money on the weekends but she told us how much she makes, and it's a lot. 

Tuesday was an awesome day, we picked up a bunch of solid investigators and put them all on date and they will probably make it. It was the family that we helped on Monday, and we taught the mom the Saturday before. They were down to get baptized when they were meeting with elders last year, but due to pressure and some things that happened to them from their family, they disappeared. But everything is better now. Like I said they contacted us, and want to come back to church, so that's what we're going to do. 

The same day we had a lesson with German, the other investigator that contacted us out of the blue. This man is a champ. He is so spiritually sensitive and wants to follow Christ with all his heart. During our first visit we gave him a BoM and asked him to read the introduction. The next day, he called us and told us that he read that and the intro and the first 7 chapters. How amazing, he feels that the book really is from God, but is a little timid and worried about baptism. He still accepted a baptismal date. The best part is he is really easy to teach, asks really good and sincere questions, and really studies what we give him. In the lesson after he told us all this he mentioned that he read everything he read twice so he could really understand what he read. He talked about a question he had about some things in the Bible and he found an answer in the Book of Mormon that really touched him. We try to teach, but really the Holly Ghost is the one doing the real work, and I'm so grateful for that. He came to church this week and in the gospel principles class he was asking really great questions. 

Tuesday night we had a dinner with a member, we were standing outside all together about to walk in and this guy walks up to us and from across the street asked if we were "bible bashers." We told him we were just missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. We explained what we do, and he was like "that's all good, but do you read the Bible?" I could already see where this was going and the guy was asking us weird questions about the apocrypha. Any way, the funny part was at one point he was talking about some passage in Deuteronomy about slavery and he was like, "what group of people does this make you think of?" I knew where he was trying to go, so all I replied was "how far back are we going, because just about every group of people have been enslaved at one time or another." I forgot to mention this guy was black, but he just paused for a second and pivoted to another point. It was more funny than anything, and the meal we had right after was super good. Props to that guy though, 5 missionaries and he still was confidant enough to try to corner us.

The Suarez family came to church again. They are so awesome. Sadly though they aren't getting baptized this Saturday, but they really want to be. The said they wanted to go to church more before they make set a solid date. The read and pray as a family every night. They really believe everything we say and connect really well with the members we have brought to lessons. Turns out one of the members we had knew the mother-in-law when they lived in El Salvador. That was a little funny. Jose has opened up a lot more and actually stays when we teach. They also ask us about church all the time. Natividad (the father) is also reading from the teachings of the prophets for Gordon B. Hinckley, and we are trying to get him a Gospel Principles book to read from as well. They fed all the missionaries in the branch Saturday and are going to do it again this week. Hilda (the mom) apparently used to own a restaurant and cooks amazing Hispanic food. We'll be having hand made pupusas today. They are going to be really good. 

Also the new restoration video put out by the church is really good. Watch it.

2017 Restoration Video

Prophets of the Restoration Videos

4/3/17 Pitbulls, new malibu, church tour

3 months!

Due to the weird P day schedule we had two Sundays between emails. Last Sunday was awesome. We had fast and testimony meeting, where people just share their testimonies on anything they want so it can be interesting sometimes. Sadly we weren't able to get any investigators out, but the meeting was fantastic. We had a few really powerful lessons that week where members participated with us, and they shared their testimonies on those experiences and it was incredible. I was just so happy, it was kind of weird. So many people where trying to share their testimonies, so the branch president finally said we had time for one last quick one. I feel like everything we do with the members starts 15 minutes late and goes 30 minutes over. Half way through the meeting Luis, the less active kid we are working with, showed up. I heard the door open and was super happy to see him walk in. Elder Guerrero was sitting in the back with someone and Luis sat with him. The only thing stopping him from going to church is his inability to go to sleep and wake up on time haha. 

Spectrum Health Grand Rapids

That night we got called to give a blessing to someone who has been in the hospital for the past few weeks. That was such a beautiful night. The hospital is massive, like crazy big. Spectrum Health Grand Rapids. We parked in the wrong building and there are sky bridges from building to building, but we just walked outside. It was a perfect night at dusk. We meet up with one of the members of the branch and walked to the room. I've had a few opportunities to give blessings, none in Spanish...yet, but they are always really touching moments. 

The next day we had a fantastic lesson on the Plan of Salvation with the family we found. They asked some really good questions and offered to feed us after. It was great. We had handmade pupusas which were awesome. We had another lesson with them later on in the week in the church where we gave a little tour and finished next to the baptismal font. 

We put them on date! They were super excited to come to church to watch conference but last minute had to cancel because "something came up." We asked if there was anything we could do for them and if everything was alright. They just said "pray for us," so I'm slightly worried for them. They are awesome though. They pray as a family, do a bunch of family oriented activities, and have read a little of the Book of Mormon. 

Tuesday was a little funny. We spent a fair amount of time knocking doors and one guy opened the doors asked if we were Mormons and I said, "Yes". He then said he wasn't interested in talking with us and started closing the door. I asked why he wasn't interested and he said we were one of the "false religions". I asked him why he thought that and couldn't say why. I asked if we could maybe talk with him about our church and he said he didn't want to waste time talking with someone about a false religion. That was a little funny, I wish we could have talked with him. Door knocking just makes me think of the scripture in Mark about how people with ears to hear will hear. Door knocking is not the way to find people ready to hear. I cannot stress the importance of member missionary work enough. We also had a funny dog encounter the same day. We were talking with this lady, and after she left we were writing down her info to call later and this massive pitbull walks out of its dog house. It charged at us, but luckily was chained to the little doggy house. We laughed a little bit until it started dragging the doggy house towards us, we crossed the street and the owner came out and yelled at the dog. Never have I seen a more muscular dog. My goodness.

Friday we picked up our new Malibu! It rained our whole way down to Lansing and the people weren't ready for us once we got there, which wasn't that good. We chilled in the mission office, and once we made all the calls we could to potentials and investigators we ran out of things to do. We played ping pong and read through sections of "Mormon Doctrine" by McConkie that are not scripturally backed up and are not actually doctrine. That was fun, there are some weird things in that book haha. After a few hours we were able to take the car. It's sweet. Its color is "nightfall grey steel," but best of all TIWI wasn't working on the way home so I drove home at a comfortable pace. 

Saturday and Sunday were pretty great. Every six months we get to hear from the Apostles and Prophets who lead our church. Saturday my favorite talks were definitely Elder Holland's talk on the hymn "There is Sunshine in my Soul" 

Elder Holland's talk

and especially Elder Sabin's talk on being fully committed to the gospel. He made a point of connecting the symbolism of baptism with being fully committed to the gospel. The ordinance of baptism needs to be done correctly, and if the person isn't fully submerged it must be done again. For the gospel of Jesus Christ we need to be all in, and when we are truly all in we are eligible to receive the greatest blessings God can give. 

Elder Sabin's talk

In the Priesthood session, President Eyring made a really good point on leadership and service. He said the Lord's work is not to solve problems, but to build people. When we help people we need to be thinking of what will actually help them, instead how to fix the situation. Once they can help themselves they can fix the situation on their own. This builds off the idea of the importance of building strong capable people, instead of making life easier. Capable people solve problems while people who haven't had to learn and grow shrink at challenge.

Elder Eyring's talk

I hope everyone reads or watches at least one talk. These people truly were called of God, and that's a powerful gift.