Email treinta y cinco: 19 years and counting

 April 10, 2017

Howdy folks!
Thanks to everyone for all the birthday wishes, emails, packages, and letters!  You helped make my first birthday away from home a good one!  A special shoutout goes to my wonderful sister

SHANNON for sending me Dominos pizza!  Another shoutout goes to my wonderful mother for sending a box full of food (very needed) and BYU gear (can never have too much of that either).

So I'll start off by telling about what we did this morning. Brother Bobby Lorimer owns a textbook and apparel store for Arkansas State University, so we stopped and got some free stuff. I walked out with $95 worth of free clothes, mostly because I nabbed a sweet $70 sweatshirt. I love free stuff! Ward members here really love to spoil the missionaries. I can't complain.

Last Monday we had a pretty crazy experience. We were in Walmart towards the end of P-day because we still hadn't gotten shopping done, when an inactive, recent convert came named B came up and talked to us and told us about how she had fallen away from the church and all the struggles she has been going through. She has gone through some pretty heavy stuff in her life.  It was pretty heart breaking to listen to. She started crying in the middle of Walmart while talking to us and said: "Every time I hit rock bottom, you guys (missionaries) just show up. I felt something telling me that I really needed to come up and talk to y'all." We told her to go back to her apartment, wait for us to put our groceries away, and we would be right over to talk to her. We had a really long discussion with her and how we can help her come back to the church and turn her life around and finally find peace again. I thought that she felt the Spirit really strong, she promised she would come to church this Sunday and we set up an appointment to see her Saturday night. To be continued later on in this email.

Tuesday I directed my first District as a District Leader. I talked about the importance of Diligence,

one of the attributes of Christ. In my instruction, I served a paragraph from an email of my buddy Elder Alex Jimenez, who is serving his mission in Argentina right now.

"I had a really simple, but really nice experience this week. We were contacting outside, and I hadn't brought my jacket, cause we left in a hurry (fool), when it started to drizzle. No biggie, we kept contacting. Then, all the sudden, it started pouring! We had nowhere to go, just contacts, and it was pouring! We had been working for hours, and there was a member who lived close, so we decided we were going to go to his house and pass the rain. As we were walking, soaked to the bones, a quiet thought came to my mind that said "Jesucristo would stay out here if he was looking for you" I stopped in my tracks, and in the middle of the pouring rain, I said "Hey, I know this is crazy, but let's just keep contacting. The Savior would do it for us". So we did. We continued contacting in the rain. The people still shut their doors in our faces, but I ended up feeling really good, because I had a chance to show Heavenly Father that I love Him. So that was a really cool experience that I had this week."

The District really liked that story, I also shared portions from President Eyring's Priesthood session address from 2010 October Conference, "Act in All Diligence." I also shared parts of be the Fourth Missionary, and one of my personal favorite quotes: "The only promised result of hard work is joy!" I truly have gained a testimony of that statement. The most miserable times of my mission have been when I was putting in my worst effort, and the best moments of my mission are when I give everything!

The super funny thing about sharing Elder Jimenez's story is a couple days later THE EXACT SAME THING happened to us! We got caught out in the rain while finding, and it was COLD, but we stayed out and kept looking, because Christ would do it for us. Then we FINALLY found a Hispanic. We were about to see the fruits of our diligence! Then she rejected us, and we were back out in the cold rain in short sleeve white shirts. And I loved it! It was so weird. I felt so happy, even though we had made literally no progress, I knew that I had gone out, and put my love for Jesus Christ over my own will, and I couldn't stop smiling!

Right after District meeting I went on exchanges with the Zone Leaders. I went with Elder Croft. Elder Croft is from Pocatello Idaho, and goes home in four weeks, but is doing very well at not be trunky. He is very enthusiastic and quite hyperactive. We had 3 hours of solid finding where we literally talked to everything that moved! People are fun. We got yelled at by the mail man because we tried to give him a card. It was a fun exchange. Teaching only Spanish has been tough, because we are always finding or contacting, because our teaching pool is smaller than our District.

Saturday, my birthday, was a good time. We all actually ended up sleeping through our alarms, and so we woke up at 7:30, late for a service project that started at 7. It was a nice birthday present to get to accidentally sleep in. We threw on jeans and zipped on over to Brother Brent Rougeau's house to help him clear his yard of leaves. Brother Rougeau probably has the thickest southern accent that I ever did hear. He is also the Ward Seminary teacher, so it's a pretty hilarious combination. He is super redneck (self-proclaimed), wears cowboy boots to church and has 5 different tractors in his back yard, and is one of the funniest people I have met on the mission. If he had a daughter my age I'd marry her just to have him as a Father in law! He knows a TON about the scriptures and we had a deep doctrine discussion after we finished the service about the importance of sealings in the temple.

After that, the rest of the day was pretty normal, we got out and did a lot of finding, talked to lots of people, got the same old excuses of being busy. Then at 6 we had dinner at Bishop R's house. At my request we had chicken alfredo, garlic bread, and Oreo ice cream cake. It was glorious. I love the Rich family, they weren't a bad replacement for birthday dinner at home.

Yesterday we had 3 solid lessons at it was fun, I'm out of time, but I love y'all!

The Church is true, the Book is blue, mom just so you know I'm wearing that BYU shirt that I got from you!

Email treinta cuatro: una nueva época

April 3, 2017 

Howdy folks!

Monday after getting back to Jonesboro and getting settled in, we went to an FHE with the R family. Last transfer, my very first day in Jonesboro, we had dinner with the R family. I had mentioned during the dinner that I went to BYU before the mission and Brother R went off about how much he hates BYU. I thought to myself: "really, I thought I left all the BYU hate behind in Utah." Afterwards, he said: "I hope you didn't take that personally." If I'm honest, I definitely took it

personally!  But I decided to get over myself and go into the FHE with an open mind. We had a good lesson, and he ended up giving us a referral.  The moral of the story is sometimes people say things that tempt you to instantly judge them, but always keep an open mind, and as that jewelry commercial says, an open heart, and love will always find it's way inside.

 We left the R family with an invitation to invite someone to watch General Conference, and then their 13 year old daughter dropped an invitation of her own on us to not say anything negative for a week. We didn't do so well on that, haha.  I'm going to keep trying though, and also (my parents will love this) I'm trying to eliminate all fake swear words such as dang it, shoot, freak, frick, fetch, and crap from my vocabulary. It's so hard dang it!

 Wednesday, we hit the pavement, and had a good long day of finding. It was pretty awesome, because we found an apartment building of almost all Hispanics.  We talked to a white guy named Scroggin (no joke), taught an awesome guy named Martrell and talked about the Book of Mormon and season three of The Flash. That night we went to Book of Mormon class and had a homeless guy walk in during the middle of the class and start eating McDonalds.

 One morning during personal study I felt inspired to read Like a Broken Vessel by Elder Holland, and I don't think I've cried that much during personal study before. Elder Holland talks about those who suffer from major depression, but I felt that talk was speaking directly to me. There have been times on the mission where I have literally felt hopeless. After reading that talk, I felt Heavenly Father's love so powerfully. This is my favorite paragraph:

• "So how do you best respond when mental or emotional challenges confront you or those you love? Above all, never lose faith in your Father in Heaven, who loves you more than you can comprehend. As President Monson said to the Relief Society sisters so movingly last Saturday evening: “That love never changes. … It is there for you when you are sad or happy,  discouraged or hopeful. God’s love is there for you whether or not you feel you deserve [it]. It is simply always there.” Never, ever doubt that, and never harden your heart. Faithfully pursue the time-tested devotional practices that bring the Spirit of the Lord into your life. Seek the counsel of those who hold keys for your spiritual well-being. Ask for and cherish priesthood blessings. Take the sacrament every week, and hold fast to the perfecting promises of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Believe in miracles. I have seen so many of them come when every other indication would say that hope was lost. Hope is never lost. If those miracles do not come soon, or fully, or seemingly at all, remember the Savior’s own anguished example: if the bitter cup does not pass, drink it and be strong, trusting in happier days ahead." 

If any of you feel hopeless or unloved, I invite you to read the rest of this talk. I bear witness that God loves us, even enough to let us hurt from time to time, because he knows what we can become if we turn to His perfect Son.

 On Friday we had weekly planning, and we weekly planned until FIVE PM!  It took almost all the day, but it was probably the best weekly planning session I've ever been in because we talked so in depth about our investigators and how we can help them, and also how we can improve our comp unity.  Elder Giles and I talked to each other for a while, neither of us have any problems with Elder Barron yet because he's new, haha.  Last transfer I chastised Elder Giles a lot over a lot of little things, and that caused a lot of tension.  I decided that I need to change and increase my love and humility so that I can be a better companion.

All three of us are very motivated to work our tails off this transfer. We all decided that we are going to to change the Spanish companionship to pure Spanish, not English and Spanish, so we dropped or referred all of our English speaking investigators. Ahora vamos a llegar a la calle y trabajar durísimo por el Señor.

 General Conference deserves it's own email. There's something about Saturday morning sessions that make me bawl my eyes out. What really touched me was how Elder Renlund compared sin to a disease afflicting a sheep. The Savior, our Good Shepherd does not hate us because we sin, but because He loves us so perfectly He wants to rid us of that sin so that we can be whole. 

I hope you all feel just how perfectly God loves you, because when you feel His love, you will never be the same. The Church is true, the Book is blue, never forget that your Savior loves you!