Car Wrecks and the Middle East

Happy Memorial Day! This past week has flown by. It’s crazy how fast time has started to go now. It seems like they days feel like hours and the weeks feel like days. The months just fly by. I love where I am at. Things are really starting to pick up here and we are excited for the future. Lots of tender mercies this week and we have really noticed the Hand of the Lord in our work a lot more. 

Spiritual: This week we had a wonderful visit with a less active family. This family is from the Middle East. They came to America and about 50 or so years ago they went to Utah for a tour. Later on when they came back to New York, the missionaries stopped by their home and shared the gospel with them. They ended up joining the church and were very happy about it. Eventually they moved to California and settled down. While here they got acquainted with a lot of their friends from the Middle East who do not speak English very well. This family felt really bad for their friends and so they started to drive them to the Iranian Christian Church so they could have a better sense of community and interact with their own language. This couple knows that the church is true but out of obligation to their people they go to another church. Our lesson with this couple was really funny as well as very profound. They are TALKERS. It was so cute! They sat and just told us story after story of them doing funny Middle Eastern things and how the American culture interacts with it. For example Majid was driving along going 120 mph and gets pulled over. "Oh officer, I so sorry. I thought it was in Kilometers!" He knew perfectly well it was in mph. Oh so funny. I love them. They sat and told us about some of the struggles that they are having. From the wife’s bouts with some nasty cancer to the struggles of their people. It was so sweet to hear them talk of the gospel and how they love it so much. They offered as well to have all their friends from the Iranian Christian church come and hear the lessons. We said that we could make that work and we are really excited to teach those people. They said they would arrange a meeting and we are really looking forward to meeting them all and teaching them. We are so excited! This gospel is true. It has the capacity to bless the lives of anyone in any circumstance. There is no place on this earth, no culture so diverse where the gospel of Jesus Christ cannot bless lives. We saw it in the lives of these humble people and I see it in my life every day. 

Funny: We were going to a baptism in Fremont on Saturday when we got a call from president. He was going down to a baptism in Prunedale and when he went to change lanes, a motor cycle smashed into his car! President had a flat tire and was in need of some help. His Jack bent and he was on the side of the road. It was really fun to be able to run to the rescue to help him out. We grabbed a spare jack and took off. Poor president. He wasn't happy. Can’t blame him. That car was brand new. Not even a month old. Everyone was okay, the vehicles were only going about 10 mph. Thankfully no one was hurt and everyone was okay. We had to take away his driving privileges though and make Sister Mella the designated driver from now on. :)

Where I am at: We are planning to start up the Farsi group here in the Almaden Ward. We just need Farsi baptisms to start it up. We are planning on just changing venues for Majid and his people. We are way excited. We also found two new investigators last night at dinner and we are going to the visitor’s center at the temple on Saturday with them. Things are going so well here. We just got a new Ward Mission Leader who is young and fresh and full of great Ideas on how to get the work really going. I am so happy to be here. Ipads are coming this week so it will be a huge change in how missionary work happens. Be ready. It’s going to be amazing. I love you all. I am so happy to be here. I feel the spirit every day and am so grateful to be serving my Savior to the best of my ability. I love you all! 

Faith=Happy

This week we worked our tails off. We had a couple of ZTM Meetings and we had a little bit of office stuff, namely picking president up from the airport, but other than that it was a week of work. We saw some miracles and learned a lot. The Lord’s work has got to be done with His spirit, His way or it’s not His work. When we try to interject our own ideas without asking for his help, usually it just goes south. Just a little excerpt of what we learned this week. 

Spiritual: Recently in the mission the whole focus has been around baptisms. We have focused on finding, teaching and now baptizing. It’s been a huge deal. Since we are committed to carry that culture throughout the mission, we decided that we needed to baptize. It’s been like a hunger that has been growing. We have started salivating just thinking about white clothes. We actually had a sit down talk and just said that we needed to baptize this transfer. We feel that the Lord will support this goal and we felt like it was the right thing to do. So we started to work. We visited a ton of part member families but minimal teaching opportunities arose. We visited a ton of former investigators but again minimal teaching opportunities. There were a couple of gems we found in a couple return appointments, but this was not the miracle we were looking for. This started to really get under our skin this week and we started letting this obsession drive us to negativity and unfortunately a lack of happiness. This all came out Saturday night when we play some basketball with a bunch of investigators and less active members. We got there and despite our efforts, not very many people showed up. I was pretty frustrated at that point. We went home and planned for the next day and I caught myself feeling dark and not filled with the spirit. It was depressing. While we were praying for the Lord to confirm our plans for the next day, the thought came to me that true faith is manifest in a positive outlook in the future. Faith in Jesus Christ is filled with light and with hope. It’s not an enduring, draining resistance, but a light excited view on what is happening next. It’s also not a gleeful fleeting, spasmodic happiness that is gone within a couple of days. This faith sustains us and lifts us to overcome trials and discouragement and to move on stronger. As soon as we changed our attitude to one of faith and hope, the next day we met with Sergio. The man who we gave the blessing to a couple weeks ago. He was so open and humble and expressed his love for God and the blessings he has received from Him. It was a testimony to me that faith in Jesus Christ, appropriate faith, has power. Jesus Christ has all power. He lives! He suffered so that He could help us! I Love Him. 

Funny: President and Sister Mella went to an Ipad training in SLC this week. They told him he had to go back to California by Thursday. So he got the latest possible flight into San Jose Thursday night. I don’t blame him! He looked so refreshed coming off that plane! We were there to greet him. We had a card that said "Glen and Elizabeth Mella" And I was holding a couple of leis so when they got off the plane we greeted them with a "Welcome Home! Aloha!" and then drove them back to the Home. I love them so much. :)

Where I am at: We are finding a lot more people to teach. We are working a lot more with the ward and trying to help them in their missionary efforts. Things are great here! We have a pretty free week so get ready for some more miracles coming next week! Just us and the work here. We are excited to keep it going. I love you all!

Tiger

It was good to talk to you this week! Really neat things are happening at home and away. It’s been fun to talk to you about what was going on and about where you all are at. It was a delight to me and it’s been such a blessing to have you as a constant line of support while I have been here. Thank you so much.

Spiritual: One of the blessings of serving in this capacity is being able to do exchanges with zone leaders and whomever the President feels we should exchange with. It’s been really fun to go out with missionaries and learn some of their best practices. This week I got the chance to go on an exchange with a very young zone leader. It was so much fun to learn from him and be with him. It made it even more cool because I was the one who picked him up from the airport his very first day! It was my first transfer as an assistant that he came into the mission. It was a special experience. We were going through and visiting part member families and we were walking toward this house when we saw an oriental couple walking their dog. Sometimes it’s hard to talk to Chinese people because they don't speak English, but this time something said that we needed to talk to them. We walked right by the house and started talking to this Asian couple about their dog and about his work. He said that he worked as a software engineer for Google and he had a coworker who was also a member. He had served a mission in Taiwan and had shared some of his beliefs with this man. The spirit was so strong! We shared about what missionaries do (teach the doctrine of Christ) and then invited him to learn more. There was a pause (this is when the spirit touched our hearts and his) and he said "yes." Oh the three most beautiful letters in the English language. It was amazing. We got his contact info and then sent him on his way. Later we passed him off to the Chinese elders to teach. Both he and his wife came to church yesterday and they are now praying and reading. We are so excited for him. And thus we see how a member’s example and courage to share his beliefs can result in a miracle. I love the spirit of missionary work. I love my Savior. I am so happy to serve Him.

Funny: Devon last night was happy to see us! After we had gotten our food we said "Devon! Message of the night: God Loves You!" Devon replied: "have a good night." Love Devon.

Where I am at: Almaden. Oh Almaden. I found out this week that it’s not pronounced almadin. It’s pronounced Alma-den. I love my mission! I love my companion! I am so happy to be where I am. I love it here and am so excited to see what else happens this week. Miracles abound! I love you all! Thank you so much for your support and love.

Waffles and Blessings

This was a great week here in Almaden. We have been trying to find more people to teach and things are going well. Elder Matthias and I got to be mission presidents for a day when president Mella went to a conference in Monterey. It was so fun to drive the Avalon and enjoy the mission. I am happy here and things are going great. We saw several miracles this past week from recent converts moving into the area to a powerful blessing with the Bishop. Things are great.

Spiritual: This week we have been really putting the petal to the metal when it comes to finding more people to teach. We have a lot of investigators that are good, but floating around. It’s hard to meet with them and hard as well to help them understand sacrifice and blessings.  We have started visiting all the part member families in the ward and seeing the level of interest. We went over yesterday to a family that had asked to stop having missionaries come over a while back. They were really burnt out with the church and needed a break. We went over there hoping for a glimmer of light and it came in full force. When we knocked on the door a woman came out that was a little stressed. We asked her if she was the person that was on our directory. She said she was and that she was a little stressed right now. We asked her why and she told us that her husband had been admitted to the ICU with a tear in his aorta and a mass on his Kidney. Yikes.  She said she was on her way there and we asked if he would like a blessing. She said yes and then we were off. We got the bishop to meet us there and then we went and gave him a blessing. It sounds a lot worse than it actually is. He was sitting up in bed and looked happy. We talked to him and he told us that he was leaning on the Lord through this whole process. The blessing from the bishop was great and then we left. After the bishop told us what a changed man that man was from the first time he had met him. It sounded like a totally different person than who we had met. It was a testimony to me that the Lord uses his servants to do his work. Sometimes it takes a humbling experience to bring people to him. I am so grateful to be a part of this work.

Funny: In Almaden we drive the transfer van. A huge 8 passenger van that we use to move missionaries around. Because the mission presidents seminar was in Monterey President needed the van to shuttle mission presidents. In preparation the van was detail cleaned. It looked beautiful. So of course the next day as we were getting ready to go make waffles for some missionaries, the waffle batter spilled all over. Ha ha; it was a good example of how Murphy’s Law works. It came out just fine. Just one of those funny situations. :)

Where I am at: Things are great. I love my mission. I am happy to be here and serving in the way that I am. I love you all!