Missions can be full of heartbreak

This week has been alright. It was really slow and kinda hard. So all the Elders here in Payson got sick except me. So all of them were down with the flu and didn't want to spread it to anyone else. So I was stuck inside for like 3 days without doing anything. It was so boring and I just wanted to work so bad! Well Sunday rolled around and we went down to Young for church. I had to give a talk and it went pretty good but I still don't like speaking haha. Well at the beginning of the week we got a call from some members that had been fellowshipping Dani Brown. Our recent convert. She told us she had some bad news and told us that Dani had shot herself. They took her down to the valley hospital to try and take care of her. Her heart failed 5 times and ended up passing away that night. It was a heart breaker! I had dreams the next two nights about finding her. But it just helps strengthen my testimony in the Plan of Salvation. I don't understand how people can go through family deaths without that knowledge. It's so hard. But that's why I'm out here. Is to help other people with their lives. And to top it all off I'm getting transferred to an area I've already been in down in the valley! Man this week was pretty hard. But I guess you just gotta put your shoulder to the wheel and push along. It's a good thing a mission isn't about me, it's to help as many other people as I can. :)

Good thing my mom send me out with Uno cards because that's what we did most of the week.  

Here is Dani at her baptism

A Happier People

We had a pretty good week this week. We went down to Young this week and just did farm work the entire day! We cleaned out coops, laid new hay down, fed horses, shoveled dirt, dumped pools, realigned fence, really anything you could think of to do on a farm we did it. It was a pretty long day. But Young is really good. We are heading back down there this Saturday and Sunday.

Other than Young, our other two areas are doing pretty good. We still have the Gonzales family on date for March 4th. They are still on track for that date too so that's good! As we have been teaching them I've kind of noticed how much we expect from them. I mean between each visit we expect that they are reading every night, pray as a family, coming to church on Sundays, keeping commitments we leave with with along with the commitments from all the previous lessons. I notice we expect a lot from them. So I thought about the church in general and how much is expected from all of us. We are expected to do a lot! Keep ALL the commandments (at least to the best of our ability), go home teaching every month, visit families in need, prepare lessons for church, render service. All these different things and so much more. I started think about why we do it all. What makes it all worth it? Well first of all, the Lord expects a lot from us. He know we can do amazing things but also knows we make mistakes. He wants us to stretch ourselves. Grow and learn from all of our experiences. It's not just the church that expects a lot from us but Heavenly Father himself. And second of all is the happiness we can find in living the gospel.  "and surely there could not be a ​​​happier​ people among all the people who had been created by the hand of God" 4 Nephi 1:16. This is after they have gone through so much war, bloodshed, robbing, and loss but yet when they lived the gospel to the fullest it brought them so much happiness. We might be expected to do a lot but the lords blessings for doing so are 10 fold what we could ever imagine doing without Him. 

Huge miracle this week!

Man this week was so good. We had a huge miracle this week. So the family with the single mom and two daughters came to church. They couldn't find their Sunday dress so they were only planning on coming for one hour. Well they got to church and everyone was so nice to them. The two daughters begged their mom to stay for the rest of the block... So they ended up staying! It was soooo good for them. The two girls got up in front of primary and everyone sang to them and they had the biggest smiles on their faces. It's amazing the joy that comes from the gospel! The mom was happy she stayed for the whole block. They are doing sooo good and progressing a lot. They are going to be our next baptism on March 4. I really love that family. I feel like sometimes I can see how Christ sees them. I can see the simple knowledge of the gospel they have working in their life. Every time we go over the have the light of Christ more and more. There are amazing blessings missionaries have to be able to do the work of the Lord. Being able to see through His eyes and finding out exactly what they need. I'm grateful for the blessing the Lord gives me! I'm grateful for this gospel and most of all I'm grateful for Christ and His loving atonement He preformed for us all! 

Enjoy to the end

This week went pretty good! We started meeting with a family that wanted to quit smoking. It's a single mom that has two girls. We went over a non smoking lesson with her that helps people quit in 7 days. She is going strong and hasn't smoked in 4 days. We are starting to teach the lessons to her. She is super awesome and the kids love us. They are so excited when we come over. 

I've seen a lot of things happen with investigators this week and most of them are impatient of just don't want to change their life style. It makes me sad knowing how happy they could be (knowing from experience). I mean this was e reason I came out on my mission. I knew the gospel worked and helped in any situation you're in. Whether it be me or you. The gospel could help and I knew that. It's hard to see people just give up after starting the race. They lose interest in the race they started or lose energy and think it's too much to handle. I just want to grab them by the shoulders and look them in the eye and tell them to hang on just a little longer! God is always willing to help us and just gives us little bumps in the road to help us grow. It's hard to see people trying to sit on the fence. In Joshua 24:15 it says "And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." We can't just decide to do what ever we want and then choose Christ on the last day. We have to choose today to serve Christ and let His gospel help us. ETTE (Endure to the End) or by that, enjoy to the end. 

A broken heart and a Contrite Spirit

It's been a pretty long week. We were down in the valley Tuesday having zone conference and spent pretty much all day down there. Zone conference  was pretty good though. We learned a lot about the importance of the restoration and why we teach it for the first lesson in most situations. Hopefully we can all be a little bit better teachers. 

Well we got a call Wednesday night from President and he told us we had to leave to the valley at 7 in the morning the next day. He wanted all the missionaries safely down in the valley and there was a big winter storm warning. There was supposed to be 8-12 inches of snow that day. Well we drove down to the valley Thursday and spent our time down there till Sunday morning. It stopped snowing Saturday night. We were on foot the whole time just walking around while it was raining. I didn't have a jacket either so I was walking around in a short sleeve shirt tracting for 4 days. That was pretty crappy. I was soaked. 

Saturday was really good though. Elder Oaks came to talk to us. He said he was really proud and could really feel the obedience and diligence in our mission. He didn't come and spit fire like everyone wanted him to do. It was more of just advice and he also opened it up to Q and A. It was super good. The spirit was really the teacher in the meeting. 

A lot of his answers were centered with taking the sacrament with a broken heart and a contrite spirit. Moving our faith to be more like the brother of Jared, developing a stronger relationship with our Heavenly Father, staying focused throughout our mission, etc. Everything starts with taking the sacrament with a broken heart and a contrite spirit. I thought that was really cool. It put a lot of perspective on how important the sacrament really is. Don't just take it remotely. Let it help you in you life. There's a lot of power that can be found in taking the sacrament! 

I'm PUMPED!!

Man this week has been super good. We have gotten a lot done. To start off the week we had transfers on Tuesday and my companion is Elder Boyce. He is from St George UT. Well during the week we had a lot of good lessons. So Mike Dumond is super awesome! We had some lessons with him this week and he is just on fire! Everything we teach him he just loves and wants to do it. We taught him the WoW this week and he has like a science degree is coffee. Not really, but this guy loves his coffee and knows so much about it and grinds and brews his own coffee in like 3 different ways every morning and has been to different countries to study it and farm it and stuff. This guy LOVES his coffee but when we taught it to him he was just bummed for a second and then willing to give it up for the Lord. He is super smart with all gospel related things. He is getting baptized in February for sure.

We also went to Young this week! Young is always a different experience. The drive down alone is pretty awesome. There isnt any work down there though. The best thing we can do down there is service for others. The branch is sooo excited to have missionaries though! So they are going to start a 40 day fast for missionary work. Ive seen this work a lot in my mission. Its going to be awesome and hopefully we can start something good down there.  

There are a couple people that are potential investigators that are actually starting to make appointments and things. Im excited for this transfer! We went to the Tonto Natural Bridge today and it is estimated to be the largest natural bridge in the world. It was pretty sweet! Also last and best thing. We are having Elder Oaks visit our mission this Saturday! Im super PUMPED!

Its gonna be a good transfer :)

The power of the Book of Mormon

This week was really good. Transfers are next Tuesday and we get calls this Sunday so we will see what happens. But what I wanted to talk about was this awesome couple we found tracting. I've never found any really good things from tracting but this couple is awesome! Vicky and Bill so Vicky was kind of offset and standoff-ish when we first met but now is agrees with everything we say and is super excited to meet. Her husband is really catholic but doesn't practice anymore. He had a ton of questions but we told him they would be answered if he came to know if the Book of Mormon was true. He was super excited to read it by the end of the lesson. It was super awesome! Just goes to show the power of the Book of Mormon even before he read it! 

Elder Lange, always finding an animal