31 de Octubre --Release the superhero/perfect missionary inside of you!

Hola! ¿Qué tál las cosas por allá? Well, I guess you already have told me how things are over there, so I guess it's my turn =) I just get into a habit of starting everything with that... Anyways. It has been kind of a long week here.
    We've had a few visits with some new investigators and people which have turned out well, and others we'll see where they go... Our fecha Antonio lost his fecha because he didn't come to church, and we also don't feel he is ready. Well, we know he isn't. We taught the 10 commandments, and he accepts it all in word, but won't commit to living them if the temptation comes along (specifically for the law of chastity) and we have also taught the word of wisdom. He said he will try to quit smoking, but the other things he likes and doesn't want to completely give up. And he hasn't been praying or reading. So we are helping him to see the importance and really just to feel the Spirit. It is really interesting to see the difference between investigators--some are knowledgeable, almost bible-bashing (a new Dominican that came to English class and stayed for institute, and we had a visit later in the week with him...He's one of those guys who knows like a billion history facts and what happened with people (supposedly) and sometimes make you question if what you are teaching him really makes sense (but then you think about it...our message is the only thing that really makes sense in the big picture, eternal perspective, and in general common sense and just looking at where the church is today, so then we just teach more simply and boldy!) and have doubts about authority, or some like Antonio have little experience with God or scriptures. Their needs are vastly different of course.

   As far as things in Menorca go, we are trying to figure out what we need to do and focus on. There are days when we have lots of visits and we see progress in people, and others when we are walking uphill streets all day and seeing no progress. We've talked about it a lot between us and we both sense a great feeling of apathy and lightmindedness when it comes to spiritual things and God. Satan has gotten great hold upon the hearts of many here, which makes us sad. Commandments are a difficult struggle for people, especially the law of chastity and tithing. People just don't see or feel the importance of us or our message it seems. This morning we dedicated our companionship study to finding solutions in the scriptures. We took up Pres Packers promise from Conference-- open up to any page of scripture and start reading--Answers will come. We ended up opening to Hebrews 12, Ether 4, and D&C 58, all of which directly answered the questions we included in our prayer to start our study, and the surrounding chapters (Heb. 11/13, Ether 3/5, etc.) also offered perfect insights. Now we have a more clear path! It talked about faith, running with patience and throwing off deadweights, looking unto Christ, lifting up the hand and feeble needs of others, not trading our eternal birthright for a piece of meat, "marriage is honorable", Obedience and repentance, the role of the Spirit, good things coming of God, rending the veil of unbelief, baptism, book of mormon, learning God's will, Lord's promises, humility, prayers of faith, etc. So basically lots of stuff for investigators and less actives, and lots of stuff for us! We've been giving out lots of Book of Mormon copies, so hopefully fruit comes out of that soon.

  I'm grateful for time I've had with Elder Alder so far. We both feel that although we don't know too many other missionaries, there's not many others we would rather have as a companion while we are here. We were talking the other day, we both would feel fine if we had to go home and tell people we served on a tourist island and although we didn't have tons of huge miracles or baptisms etc. we feel satisfied with our efforts and work and feel that the Lord would have us here at this time and that we are doing the right things. 

   As a dumb side note, more for my friends who saw the Avengers movie, we made some dumb analogy for how the Avengers team together demonstrate an effective missionary! This is where my email title applies =)

Ironman: effective studies, new strategies

Hulk: Self mastery, getting things done.

Halkeye: Precision hitting the weakness/putting messages into hearts of peope

Captain America: Integrity, honesty, and obedience

Black Widow: Inspired questions

Thor: Power and authority of our calling/teaching with...

Other heros: 

Batman: Submitting your will to a greater cause, sacrifice

Superman: Obedience, avoidance of evil (kryptonite=sin!)

Spiderman: Spidersense=in tune with the Spirit

Wolverine: Endure to the end!

 I would encourage everybody to go back and read President Packer's talk, "The Key to Spiritual Protection". His message has great importance and application to our world today, whether it be in Spain, the United States, or anywhere else. The scriptures really are the key to our spiritual health, our ability to discern between what is right and of God, and what is wrong and of the devil or a precept of men. We must study the scriptures every day to know what God's will for us that day is: what we should focus on, His answers to our prayers, and something we can share or apply in helping someone else throughout our day. One of the main things missing in almost all, if not all, of the less actives lives here in my mission and in the lives of many people we talk with is that they simply do not read, let alone study, the scriptures daily, especially the Book of Mormon. The principles, teachings, and commandments contained in the Scriptures are the only way to find true, complete, and lasting happiness and peace. I testify that the scriptures are the words of God written for us, in our day, and will guide us in a strait and narrow course to the promised land God has prepared for us. (See Helaman 3:29 and Alma 37) This important commandment (John 5:29/ D&C 18:1-5) cannot be taken for granted .They are the key to our spiritual protection and growth.

 

From Elder Oaks:

“Let us have the courage to defy the consensus, the courage to stand for principle. Courage, not compromise, brings the smile of God’s approval. Courage becomes a living and an attractive virtue when it is regarded not only as a willingness to die manfully, but as the determination to live decently. A moral coward is one who is afraid to do what he thinks is right because others will disapprove or laugh. Remember that all men have their fears, but those who face their fears with dignity have courage as well.”

  That's about all I have. Hope you have a great week! Keep being such wonderful examples and followers of Christ =) ¡Qué Dios os bendiga!

 

14 de octubre de 2013

Bon dia a tots, ¿com va? It has been a great week here for us. First off though, transfer news! *Drum roll* I'm going to Menorca! I'll be with Elder Alder. In other words, nothing happened =) We didn't even realize it was transfers haha. We got called Saturday night, and they were like, "Hey, so I've got transfer news" and I was like "What transfer news? Oh, that transfer news!" And we're both staying. Actually, our whole zone pretty much stayed the same except for Elder Bozarth, who's going to Hospitalet, and an Elder in Mallorca. So yeah, we're pretty excited to have another transfer together! Especially now that we are starting to tear up Menorca a little bit =)

 I have been relistening to General Conference and we have been sharing talks with the members in our lessons, and we have seen miracles and softening of hearts! I love General Conference. It is amazing to see the Lord work in people, and to work through us to do it! General Conference nailed every doubt/excuse/problem/situation that we have here in Menorca, so that is great. Like all of the Sundy talks are just perfect for rebuking less actives with love and the Spirit, and the words of the living prophets (that scripture about the word of God being sharper than a two-edged sword...yeah, it's true  And the guilty do take the truth to be hard, because it cuts them to the center! See 1 Nephi 16:27/2 Nephi 9:30 something). It has been a good system for us to start with a prayer, read a couple related scriptures, have a little discussion/bear testimony to invite the Spirit, then show the conference talk, then bear testimony again.

  We have been thinking between how we can help some of these people who it seems we have been working with for forever now, thinking if we should kind of leave them or keep working with them. We came to the conclusion that we were going to start sharing bold, powerful messages and basically give some of them the sink or swim, fly or die concept. And it's kind of worked! We shared an excellent message with Percy and Yamile, based off of 2 Nephi 2:27/Alma 34:31-34ish and then talking about repentance, coming to the Savior, and how today is the day of our salvation, and immediatly the great plan of redemption can be brought about in us. We don't have to wait for some future day! Then we showed President Eyring's sunday talk to them. The Spirit was strong, and they both felt the power of the message. Percy is reading in the Book of Mormon, almost done with 1 Nephi now, and it seems to be going great.

7 de Octubre

General Conference was really great. I had brought a paper with some 6 or so questions, and every one was answered in just about every talk haha. Then after taking all of my notes I colored and highlighted
answers/points by colors as I reviewed my notes. It was really neat to see how this process has consistenly worked for me! It is so true..write down questions on a paper, take notes, y che! Ya lo tiene.
It was a little sad though, we had invited like 15 people who said they would definitely be there, some just 30 min before it started we saw them in the street and reminded, and they didn't show... it ended
up being us, President with his family, and Carmen and Francisco, who enjoyed it a lot =) We are probably going to print out a few talks for people to read, because this conference was just pinned on the head to
all of what Menorca needs right now! I heard them address almost every single excuse, problem, or doubt that we see and hear every day. The Saturday morning and Saturday afternoon (which we watched sunday
morning) we watched in Spanish, which for me is pretty much the same as far as understanding, but much less in spiritual power...hearing the real voice is so much better, and native tongue of course.
Everyone went home after that, and Elder Alder and I watched the Priesthood session and sunday morning in English. We still have to watch the sunday afternoon, which I'm downloading today to listen to.
I think the Priesthood session was my favorite or the Sunday morning, but all the talks were great. I really enjoyed President's Uchtdorf's talks, they were just magnificent. I liked Richard Maynes talk too,
about building spiritual stamina. Elder Oaks was just super bold. I love it =) I really enjoyed Pres Monson's sheep herder analogy too.  I was inspired by the way that Elder Alder takes notes and learns effectively from the Conference, from PMG, scriptures, etc. and is a very organized student =)

Oh, one funny thing I guess. After conference, we were talking with President Bladimir. He suggested that we start visiting a few pueblos on the other side of the island to see if the antiguos or menos activos there would be interested, because things are going a little slow on this half. We just kind of joked, “let's just pack up our bags and start anew in Ciutadella! If all the hundred less actives here don't want to go, we'll just go to the other end closer to the members who do come! (President lives in Ferreries and Francisco in Es Migjorn).” But there might be a grain of truth to that. We should just start telling people, look if you don't want to come to church, we're out of here and then you can drive an hour to get to church when you
change your mind and want the blessings of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, then maybe they will come =)

 Well, thank you for all of your prayers...they work! ¡Que todo siga bien!

30 de Sept Updates

Sept 30th  
   Hola! Haha this time we are writing in the morning, so you can have it by 7:00 am! I too can hardly believe that September flew right on by. It feels like it just started! We're already halfway through the transfer and it felt like we just started. Time is just a weird thing I guess.Hopefully I didn't forget anybody in my growing list of people haha. And hopefully you have time to read all of my rambling =)

       So, this week for us. We didn't have much time from Thursday to the end basically, because of all of our traveling and the District Conference for the Islas Baleares, but those probably helped me more than earlier in the week =) We did a lot of finding activities too, so key indicators weren't as high but we feel satisfied with our efforts this week.  Lots of door knocking, street contacting and being rejected =)

      First off, I loved the opportunity we had to work with President Pace this past week. We were in companion study at 10:45ish when President calls us. He said he had just got in, and asked if we would like that he come out with us, or that he not bother us and read letters. We said “Of course you can come!” We both learned a lot from his example, and saw great things with his faith and his influence here, especially with some of the people! We had lots of fun. It was one of those experiences where you hear about it from other missionaries but don't think you'd think to ever experience often! We had various contacts where President just did a perfect job. We ended up finding like 5 new people haha. Our visits cancelled on us so he had a lot of time to walk him around Mahón. When we had nothing to do we went to go visit an antiguo investigator, and another investigator of ours answered their door! We had lost contact with him because he moved and never answers his phone, but then there he was! We were teaching him a message when the antiguos, his sister and her husband, got home and we taught them too! Then they invited us to stay for lunch =) President was there for a visit with Fran too, and it was really powerful, and helped him a lot. Then President met with Steve around 3 and we went back to prepare for our flight. We invited Fran to the District Conference Saturday, and he came to the adult session, which was nice. He said he would make it to church, but he never did...

      Zone Conference was a wonderful experience. I loved the Spirit that I felt throughout the day. I always love learning more about the Book of Mormon and I want to start using it more powerfully in my efforts. I loved the discussion on testimony and felt that mine has grown. I was impressed by the new way of planning that Hna Pace introduced and I have already see how much it will help me. It resolves problems I have had with keeping track of everybody! We also have a great zone and it was nice to be edified by each other.

      This past week I have been studying and memorizing various quotes, scriptures, and the Articles of Faith in Spanish. The goal came from rereading a talk by Elder Scott about scripture study and he encouraged the saints to memorize scriptures to be a friend in time of need and to become a powerful instrument in the hands of the Lord. It has been a large resource for me in my work and in my life. I have seen this promise come true and already have had numerous opportunities to use them =)

      I was impressed with our District Conference, about President and Hna Pace's teachings on the Book of Mormon, working towards our goal of becoming a Stake, and the testimonies shared. There truly have been miracles in the islands!

      I love working with Elder Alder. He is a true Preach My Gospel missionary and loves to study from it. He works hard, we have fun, and we work well together. We both have similar goals to work towards, and yet at the same time have strengths to help the other to make a "complete" companionship.

       So, spiritual message/thought of the week. Our Book of Mormon reading is coming along just wonderfully—except that I’m falling behind. There’s just too many Christlike attributes and things to mark! I really loved the Words of Mormon this last week though.  I was impressed about how he was writing as he witnessed the destruction of his entire people, not just their general apostasy, or contentions, or laziness. Pretty fuerte. I guess compared to that teaching a once believing but generally atheist community who want little or nothing to do with God or people who have fallen away by laziness is the high way haha. That, and we still see miracles and progression here, whereas Mormon knew that this would be the end. And he just had to leave his set of records which he had been working so hard with in the ground, or rather to his son who would leave them in the ground and hope that they wouldn’t be found and destroyed. But like he says: “And I, Mormon, pray to God that they may be preserved from this time henceforth. And I know that they will be preserved; for there are great things written upon them, out of which my people and their brethren shall be judged at the great and last day, according to the word of God which is written.” He chose the things which he was impressed that we would need:

“5 Wherefore, I chose these things, to finish my record upon them, which remainder of my record I shall take from the plates of Nephi; and I cannot write the hundredth part of the things of my people.

 6 But behold, I shall take these plates, which contain these prophesyings and revelations, and put them with the remainder of my record, for they are choice unto me; and I know they will be choice unto my brethren.

 7 And I do this for a wise purpose; for thus it whispereth me, according to the workings of the Spirit of the Lord which is in me. And now, I do not know all things; but the Lord knoweth all things which are to come; wherefore, he worketh in me to do according to his will.”

I was really inspired by how King Benjamin, with the prophets, were able with “all the might of their bodies and faculties of their whole souls” and by preaching the word of God with power and authority, using much sharpness because of their stiffneckedness, were able to permanently establish peace again in the land and drive out their enemies and the false prophets. I guess in a nutshell, with the work of the community to change the culture, word of God which leads to a permanent change of behavior and characteristics, and with lots of hard, diligent efforts, peace and righteousness were established. And that leads into King Benjamin’s amazing discourse and gives us (the reader) greater understanding as to the character and background of King Benjamin, which is why I think Mormon commented on him. We had a little “fun” I guess you could say by “using much sharpness” in teaching the Law of Chastity to Percy and his partner. It went pretty well, as the Spirit and strength of the Lord backed us up, but they even said it was pretty direct and fuerte. Good, just what we wanted =) And they still accept us back. So that is my goal, I am going to become a more bold missionary and use my understanding of the scriptures to expound hard and clear doctrine to investigators and members, with love of course =)


For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, cut the Spirit of God.
Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.
Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. (1 Cor 2:11-14)

I also have been reading the CES devotional talks by Elder Oaks and Pres Uchtdorf, and the talk Absolute Truth, by Pres Kimball. All excellent talks. That false doctrine SATURATES this country haha. Relative this, depends on that, etc. and estoy hasta las narices con eso jaja. So I've started to memorize a few of their analogies and quotes to teach more effectively. It is true, there is absolute truth, whether people believe it or not. 10 times out of 10 we've seen that it's obvious these people are less active because they stopped studying not just reading the scriptures, especially the Book of Mormon, they've not prayed sincerely in who knows how long, and they haven't been to Church to renew that Spirit in a while either. The basics are key. The door closes every day and we need to re open it. Satan tries to get you to throw the key away, ignore it, lose it, have someone steal it, whatever it takes so that you don't open and walk through that door. I've also been prone to feel similar to these scriptures in Helaman 12:
4 O how foolish, and how vain, and how evil, and devilish, and how quick to do iniquity, and how slow to do good, are the children of men; yea, how quick to hearken unto the words of the evil one, and to set their hearts upon the vain things of the world!
5 Yea, how quick to be lifted up in pride; yea, how quick to boast, and do all manner of that which is iniquity; and how slow are they to remember the Lord their God, and to give ear unto his counsels, yea, how slow to walk in wisdom’s paths!
6 Behold, they do not desire that the Lord their God, who hath created them, should rule and reign over them; notwithstanding his great goodness and his mercy towards them, they do set at naught his counsels, and they will not that he should be their guide.

Well, that's about it. This week we are starting English classes, being more exhorting in regards to teaching our menos activo men, and searching for families!! Some of these Menos activos we are going to bother until they either ask to leave the church or ignore us consistently haha, maybe then they will come to church! Yesterday was Carmen, Fransisco, Nicole Nuñez, and a miracle that her mom came. Basically only to rant about problems she has with the in-laws haha. But oh well...I did better at piano this week since we practiced a little. Except for the surprise change to the opening hymn he through out without even realizing it until we told him after haha. Good thing I've had lots of sight reading experience!
  We are having a blast and working hard in a spirit of obedience =) Elder Alder is a super fun guy. We are doing great. We're more and more like each other as we get to know each other more haha. Well, thanks for all of your prayers, keep them coming! We need Priesthood here. We just keep trying to the work in the Lord's way and time I guess.