Oh! Be One

This was a good week. Kinda awkward. I had to go through some medical stuff. It was a bit unfortunate. All is well though! Things have been going great here in Almaden! We have made some super good plans for the ward and we got the ward mission leader fired up for them. A youth mission week. It’s going to be SO COOL. We are going to have everything from a crazy cool house party, to flirt to convert night to a fireside by Steve Young. Oh man. It’s going to be awesome. I am way excited. Things are going great here. Transfer week is coming up so things are going to get a bit hectic. I am excited. There are going to be a lot of things happening.

Spiritual: There has been a theme this week of being One. One in all that we do. Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ are one in purpose and objectives. They are so unified in all that they do that some people think that they are one person! Jesus Christ wants us to be as unified with each other as he is with His Father. In John 17 he says:

20 Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;

 21 That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
 22 And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:

 23 I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.

This has been a huge focus in the mission recently. Heavenly Father wants us to unified as saints and as missionaries in one purpose. If we have nothing else besides the fact that we are both here serving the Lord, then we can be unified. He even goes as far in D&C 38

27 Behold, this I have given unto you as a parable, and it is even as I am. I say unto you, be one; and if ye are not one ye are not mine.

This is essential for us to learn as saints. When we are one in purpose goals and desire things come together and miracles abound. He even tells us one of the blessings that come from being unified in John 13

35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.

If we love one another, people will know that we are Disciples of Jesus Christ! This is not just something that missionaries just have to work on. Members and believers alike need to be unified. I know that when we become One by forgiving a little more, praying for a little more love, being a little more supportive and giving your heart out a little more that every effort spent will be honored and realized by our Father in Heaven. I know that when we become One we take one step closer to becoming like our Father in Heaven.

Funny: Our recent convert was walking around the parking lot saying someone stole my car! But don't worry. They always bring it back. (She had forgotten where she parked.) It was one of those cute 82 year old moments.

Where I am at: Things here are great! The work is going well and I am happy here. We are working on finding more people to teach. I am excited for the events that are coming up. Things are going to be exploding here in Almaden soon. I love this work and I love where I am at.

Cats and the Priesthood

Crazy week. Lots and lots of meetings. It was kinda funny. I spent some days more time in a church pew than I spent sleeping. Hahaha, it was really a fun week. I had a great time. It was fun. We really changed things up this week in the mission. President Mella decided to be obedient to the prophet’s counsel so we went back as a mission to just reporting on the Key Indicators found in PMG. This probably doesn’t sound like a big deal to you but it was huge to us in the field. We also made a new newsletter this week! I am pretty impressed with our newfound graphic artist abilities. I have also started to consider an art history major. Quite appealing. :) The work was a little slow this week, but it will start to pick back up here soon.

Spiritual: This week we got a call from a member that her friend would want a priesthood blessing. We went over and gave her a blessing and blessed her home. As we were giving the blessing everything went haywire. Phones were going off and my nose itched. We thought it was a flop. Complete flop. I am so grateful for the influence of the Spirit. Sometimes Heavenly Father through his loving grace covers our weakness and lets a miracle come through. After the blessing we asked her if she wanted to hear the lessons. She said YES!!! The drought of investigators ended and all was well. It was another testimony to the fact that God loves us and had answered our prayers.

Funny: We have started to teach a lot more active members in Almaden to try to work with them to receive more referrals. I love working with the members here. They are so unified. It’s a really cool community around here. We went over to this active family that has a son on a mission. We decided to teach them the restoration in 7 min. (it’s a skill we learned from Brother Donaldson. It’s AWESOME. Pamphlets. That’s where it’s at.) We went over and the father was sitting on the couch holding and stroking this little ball of fur. We asked what it was and he said that it was his missionary’s cat. This cat was 17 years old and fading fast. The son on the mission loves his pets and was heartbroken to leave them. It was a hard transition. This cat was about to go the way of all the earth but the parents were not ready to let this cat go. The son who thought he would never see this cat again would come home from his mission in April. Desperate times call for desperate measures. They gave this 17 year-old ball of fluff a priesthood blessing. They even used the oil.

Where I am at: Things are going well. We have one week till transfer meetings start so now is some time to go big in the area while we have some time to work. I am really happy where I am and I am so excited to see the work progress here. I love you all!

Small and Simple Things

This week was busy busy busy. Yikes. It was a running week for sure! We not only had Elder Cook, Elder Neilson and Bishop Causse come to our mission to teach and train us we also had the opportunity to go proselyting with Brother Lee Donaldson who is a true master teacher. It was incredible. This was definitely one of the highlight weeks of my mission.

Spiritual: I learned a lot this week. It was an amazing experience to have the instruction of a member of the quarm of the 12. What an incredible calling. It’s been a week of fun interactions with some neat people. On Monday we had dinner with the former General Primary President, We then had the opportunity on Tuesday to go out with Brother Lee Donaldson who works in the missionary department in the proselyting division. Wow. We learned a ton. On Saturday we heard from Elder Cook, Elder Neilson, and Bishop Causee and our area authority Elder Robert Packer. Wow. It was a really amazing experience. I have had a great week. The biggest thing that I learned from all of these people was that the gospel is so simple. We were taught by Brother Donaldson how to not only teach simply but that this gospel is designed so that even children can understand. He at one point in the instruction held up Preach my Gospel and said that "This is what you have to know." He then held up a pamphlet and said "This is what they have to know." We don't need to have a perfect knowledge of things right now. We need to have faith. Heavenly Father has put us here without a perfect knowledge because he wants us to learn the simple plain things to be able to have more faith in Him. These people that we got to meet this week did not tell us how they saw an angel and then it all made sense for them. They taught us how they read the scriptures and it all came together for them. I know as well that it’s through the small acts of daily obedience that we come to find out that the Church and the Gospel of Jesus Christ is true and is the course that we need to follow on this life. I know this. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

 Funny: They still get a little punchy at the end of numbers night.

Where I am at: Things are good here. We spent some time this past week putting together a plan for the ward. It’s going to be a good year. We are going to find so many people. I am so excited for the things coming up. There are a lot of big things coming up for the mission. We are changing a ton of things around for key indicators etc. I have loved this area an am looking forward to really getting things going. I am starting more and more to fall in love with the area and the members here. We have a plan and things are really going to start happening. One of the things that I want to leave you with is a thought by Elder Bednar. He effectually said that we as members of the church need to close the gap between what we know and what we do. We know we should ... but what we do is ... Let’s work to close this gap. I love you all!

Lots of Liver. LOL

This was a good week here in the Almaden Valley. We were really focusing on finding more people to teach for our SLC visit on Tuesday. It should be a really cool visit! We are really looking forward to it. It’s a little intimidating but we are excited to learn. Our hard work has really paid off! We found a few more people to teach with Brother Donaldson. It just goes to show you how the Lord will bless you in your efforts. It ended on a good note as well because Joseph was baptized! It was a really cool week.

Spiritual: This week we have focused a lot on goals and what we want to become. Goals are the landmarks in our life that enable us to look back and see what we have accomplished and how far we have come. It’s been fun to come into member’s houses and teach them about setting goals for the new year. This week though I saw a principal of goal setting come up multiple times throughout the week. The Lord was really trying to tell me something. The theme of this message was "Remember Lots Wife." It came up a "Lot" this week. The concept of remembering Lots wife comes from the story of Lot being told to leave Sodom and Gomorra and as he left, the command came from the Lord to not look back. Lots wife couldn’t take it though and looked back. She was then turned into a pillar of salt. The moral of the story from this sad tale, is to look forward and not look back. Have faith that the Lord has something better in store for you than what He has given to you so far. Yesterday Joseph was able to be baptized. It was a special day. It was cool for us to see how much he had changed. It was amazing. He had cut his hair, and took out his piercings. It was incredible. The first time I met him, he looked depressed and looked like a thug. Wow. Now it would be an absolute tragedy if after he got baptized he looked in the mirror and saw the holes from the piercings or remembered some of the things that he had done, and then decided that the baptism didn’t work. The beauty of the Atonement is that our past sins, transgressions, and mistakes are all made clean through the blood and sacrifice of Jesus Christ. It’s our job to not be like Lots wife and to not look back. We don’t need to look back on our past life with any sense of bemoaning past sins full of regret because through the Atonement we can be forgiven. When we are baptized and make sacred covenants we also promise to not look back with longing to the things that we once did. I promise that the gospel path is the path of happiness. There is no room for looking back with longing for sins of the past or beating ourselves up by letting past mistakes gnaw at our soul. Look back and take the good. The learning and the powerful spiritual experiences. These will edify and uplift you in times of trial. The negative and mistakes will only drag you down. I know that this is what will make us happy. I love this gospel and the improvement it makes possible. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. 

Funny: It was a little cold in Almaden this week but we still needed to contact people to find more people to teach. There is a lake trail in Almaden. It’s absolutely a beautiful place, but you can’t eat anything you catch in the lake because it’s full of mercury. Haha we were walking along and there was no one around. There would be no one who would want to come outside in frigid 50 degree temperatures. We were still walking in faith and we saw a group of men, probably of Middle Eastern decent. They were the only people there so we walked over and asked what they were doing. Yep. BBQ in the cold! They were super cool literally and figuratively and they asked us if we wanted some food. We said sure! We went over and they handed Elder Fisher some red chicken and they handed me some gray hunk of meat. Elder Fisher took a bite and said that it was really good. I took a bite of mine and just about gagged. Yep. He had gotten the chicken and I had gotten the liver. Lesson learned. I Do Not Like Liver. Especially cold liver. Yuck. But what did I say? "This is delicious!" It’s just polite to not be rude when Iranian offer you food. They turned to each other and said a couple of things and then got a huge tortilla looking piece of bread and put a few more hunks of liver on it and handed it to me and asked me to eat. Oh boy. That was not fun. I took one bite and just about have the livers revenge. I looked down and I had taken about half a hunk out. I gave it a little squeeze and some of the blood came out of it. Yuck. We ended that conversation pretty quick and I walked away pretending to eat my liver-burrito. I testify that the Lord blesses our stomachs so that we can handle the substance that is given to it. 

Where I am at: This upcoming week is going to be really cool. It’s going to be quite a learning week with the SLC visit and Elder Cook visit. It’s going to be a good week. We loved this past week because we got to do a lot of work in our area. It was a good week. There have been a lot of sick missionaries this week. Thank goodness that we have avoided the plagues. It’s picking up here in Almaden and we are excited for things to come. I love this work. I believe that it truly is the combination of the spirit being so prevalent in my life as well as the life changing service that we are able to offer for people. These two things as well as the knowledge that the Lord is directing this work and that this is His work. You can’t ask for a better place to be. The pure, undefiled joy that comes in this work is something that has to be shared. I love you all!