Week #75--December 27, 2016

Well Merry Christmas! 

Christmas was good. Phone call home was nice. We found 3 new investigators from tracting on Christmas night, which was an awesome blessing. Life is just good! Loving life.

Paul is still doing really well. He's super hyped on the church which is awesome. We're working on bringing him to some lessons. 

Also his neice made me a German Chocolate Cake for christmas and it was literally perfect. I just about started crying right there in their living room. Totally from scratch, totally heavenly. 

Also, I need to remind you that wickedness never was happiness. Trying to find joy in sin is contrary to the nature of God. I know that probably seems a little harsh, but I promise it's because I love you all so much! And sometimes we need that reminder. Everyone makes mistakes, and it IS true that God will always love us, but we must also remember that God doesn't tolerate sin. And he always wants us to improve. We often times see God as the perfect Cheerleader, because he's always there for us and always cheering us on. Even when we're down 70 to nothing a cheerleader will still cheer us and tell us how great we are.

In many ways that is true, but while listening to a talk by Hank Smith, he pointed out that perhaps it would be more accurate to describe God as a Coach. A perfect Coach. It's true, he's always on our side, but he is far more concerned with our progression than he is with our personal comfort, and therefore is going to push us. He's going to make us uncomfortable to make us better. And it doesn't matter how much a coach loves his players, an interception is an interception. A fumble is a fumble. A penalty is a penalty. When we sin we open our selves up to injury, regret, guilt, and punishments beyond our own comprehension. 

That is why God pushes so heavily for Obedience. He does not ask for our Obedience IN SPITE of loving us, rarther he asks for obedience BECAUSE he loves us. Neal A Maxell once said "Consecration [The act of conforming our will to God's] is the only surrender that is also a victory."

Well, I love you all! Church is true!

Week #74--December 19, 2016

Hello! Happy Hanukkah everybody! Hope you have great plans involving Menorah's and other fun holiday festivities!

This week was a lot of fun! 

We have some pretty funny stories, but IDK if I can remember them all. One took place with our investigator Robert. He's awesome. He's only like 70-80% crazy, which is about 20-30% less crazy than the average Barstow resident. 

During our lesson we asked why it was important to read the Book of Mormon and he said "So I can learn the mormon way! Like stocking up on canned goods in the garage." we had no idea where that came from, so we started to suppress laughter and he pointed at me and said "BROWN KNOWS WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!" I honestly didn't, but that's besides the point. 

We also helped him dig a mine shaft in his back yard this week. 

Yep.

You read that right. 

A mine shaft. 

He asked us to come help with some yard work, so we showed up and he directed us to this area where some trees had created a little shack, and it kind of looked like the entrance to a mine shaft. So he wants to dig a ten foot hole with stairs. 

Just for fun. 

This is the same investigator who when we were watching the Restoration movie in the quiet of his home and feeling the spirit asked OUT OF NOWHERE "You guys ever seen eggs in a basket?" to which we said "Yes" and he just went back to watching the movie. 

I love barstow. 

Spiritual moment: Paul got baptized! That was a super cool experience. He has a lot of members in his extended family and they all came down for it. Also last week he went up to Utah for his nephews farewell and his family took him to temple square for his first time and Paul told us he just couldn't describe how strongly he felt the spirit there. 

Then right after the confirmation when he was shaking hands and hugging everyone, when he got to me we hugged so hard that it made a resounding clap sound throughout the chapel and an old lady said "that was loud" and everyone laughed.

We also found 3 new investigators this week! One of them was a guy named Omar who is at a low point and wants to turn his life around. His mother in law is a member, so he was accepting and then he came to church and really enjoyed it! So that was super cool.

Also, to shift focus on the investigators who have a date (now that Paul is baptized) Edmund is a 13 year old in a PM family who comes super consistently and due to some complications was waiting for his mom to get baptized, but asked if he could baptized sooner. So he's on date for January 14th! Then we have Granny Barbara, a 78 year old Black Lady who really wants to get baptized on January 21st and Robert (mine shaft guy) is planning on getting baptized January 28th! So if all goes well, that'll be three baptisms 3 weeks in a row! It'll feel like Santa Fe all over again. 

Well, as a spiritual Thought I've been reading from President Kimball and he talks about how our thoughts play a significant role in who we become. He quotes the scripture from Proverbs "For as [a man] thinketh in his heart, so is he". He then quotes James Allen:

"A man does not come to the almshouse or the jail by the tyranny of fate or circumstance, but by the pathway of grovelling thoughts and base desires. Nor does a pure-minded man fall suddenly into crime by stress of mere external force; the criminal thought had long been secretly fostered in the heart, and the hour of opportunity revealed its gathered power. Circumstance does not make the man; it reveals him to himself. No such conditions can exist as descending into vice and its attendant sufferings apart from vicious inclinations, or ascending into virtue and its pure happiness without the continued cultivation of virtuous aspirations, and man, therefore, as the lord and master of his thoughts is the maker of himself, the shaper and author of environment...

Let a man radically alter his thoughts and he will be astonished at the rapid transformation it will effect in the material conditions of his life. Men imagine that thought can be kept secret, but it cannot; it rapidly crystallizes into habit and habit solidifies into circumstance... He who cherishes a beautiful vision, a lofty ideal in his heart, will one day realize it. Columbus cherished a vision of another world, and he discovered it; Copernicus fostered the vision of a multiplicity of worlds and a wider universe, and he revealed it; Buddha beheld the vision of a spiritual world of stainless beauty and perfect peace, and he entered into it."

I don't know if there's too much more to be said, but aim high! Don't allow poor thoughts to enter into your mind. Your mind is like an empty lot (as President Packer once said). If you leave it maintained, slowly trash and garbage will pile up until it's a junkyard. so do any necessary cleaning out right now and hang signs that say "No Dumping" and "No trespassing" and keep your thoughts clean and aspirations high!

I love you all! Church is true!

Week #73--December 5, 2016

Good morning America!

Real quick, I have to share a pretty funny quote. Last night we were planning Paul's baptism and his nephews and neices and siblings were all there and contributing ideas, and Paul was starting to get impatient because everyone was talking over him and stuff was getting rowdy and finally after a little bit of that, one of his nieces asked "Uncle! What are we going to do after the baptism?" And he turned and said so impatiently "WE'RE GOING TO COME HOME AND PLAY SKIPBO! WHAT ODO YOU THINK WE'RE GONNA DO?" And he was serious! The dude loves skipbo! I lost it. I was laughing so hard. It probably wasn't even that funny, but seeing this large Samoan man get so serious about skipbo... It was classic. 

So on that note, Paul is getting baptized in 2 weeks! So we're very excited about that. His family is also very excited. There's just lots of excitement. Just so dang excited!

Elder Prestwich got SUPER sick, so that was rough. R.I.P. Misionary work for a few days, haha. Happens to the best of us though. 

We had a big multi faith christmas program at the church... It was really nice... and then a very baptist choir performed and things got pretty irreverent. The had a drum set and a key board and were performing very loudly and people were jumping up and down.... yeah... A little strange. I would've been a lot cooler with it, had it been anywhere but the chapel haha. But it was fun other than that! We sang in a community choir... And let's just say it was no OHS chamber choir!

Not gonna lie, there were some pretty discouraging moments this week. Not so much with the work, just kind of frustrating things... Hard to explain. But I learn more and more each week that a mission is really hard. I know I keep saying that, haha, but it's because it's true! I wish I would've realized just how hard it would be, just how lonely I would feel at times, just how exhausting/tedious/frustrating it would be, so that maybe I would've been a little more prepared. 

That being said, I don't think anyone can be FULLY prepared for what the mission has to throw at you, but a strong testimony and a readiness to work hard definitely helps. 

But amidst those trials, we listened to a talk in the car called 'Healing=Courage+Action+Grace' that left a really big impact on me. 

Here's just one of the many quotes that stuck with me:

"As we consider the key components for healing, let us remember that, in the end, healing is a gift from our Savior that will likely require effort and suffering on our part so that we can grow and develop through our struggles. The gift is often the refinement we experience in the process.

Let me give you one example from one of my heroes. When the relatively young Nelson Mandela first entered prison, he was described by his peers as too “emotional” (meaning he lacked self-control), “passionate” (meaning he had a temper), and “quickly stung” (easily offended), but when he left prison twenty-seven years later, the words he would use to describe himself were “balanced,” “measured,” and “controlled.” 7 As Richard Stengel noted in his excellent book on lessons learned from Mandela, “Nelson Mandela had many teachers in his life, but the greatest of them all was prison.”8 When he was pestered about how prison had changed him, Mandela simply said, “I came out mature.” 9

Was prison a healing experience for Mandela? It depends on how you describe healing. As described in Elder Oaks’ words, Mandela developed in prison the strength, understanding, and patience necessary to bear the burdens that were placed on him. What were those burdens? In the midst of decades of violent and hate-filled conflict, Mandela left prison to lead two groups into the miraculously peaceful development of a democracy, preventing the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives in a bloody civil war. Is that healing? I would say yes. Mandela’s personal healing fostered nationwide healing. His life is an example of how courage, action, and grace lead to healing."

So for those of us who are experiencing our own prisons, please remember that healing is sometimes painful. It's different than being cured. It requires a process. The process of overcoming oneself is not always fun, but always worth it. As we allow our will to be swallowed up in the will of the Father, we come to realize that (As Elder Maxwell once put it) Consecration is the only surrender that is also a victory. 

I love you all so much! Church is true!

Week #72--November 28, 2016

Hey! This week was great! 

Thanksgiving can be rough, and I thought it would be tougher leading up to it, but it was surprisingly good! Mostly, I don't remember much because we had 4 thanksgiving dinners, and the first one was really good but I don't remember the rest of the day #FoodComa. 

Paul is still excited to get baptized! We're really pumped for him as well. 

Also, I'd be perfectly fine to stay in Barstow for the rest of my mission. It's a little unlikely, because that'd be 7 transfers/10 months but it could happen!!

Also, our Sacrament meeting on sunday was packed with people from Utah, haha. We had 3 BYU athletes and a member of the seventy all passing through on their way back to Utah, haha. But I guess when the Bishop excused the Aaronic Priesthood to sit with their families after the sacrament, everyone else thought they had the aaronic priesthood and got up and left! 

I hope everyone had a great thanksgiving! 

Church is true!

Week #71--November 21, 2016

Okay! Hold up. Life is so good. Barstow is the best

Also, fun fact. I bought some shoes here this week. 

So I guess you could say

I got my kicks

on route 66

hehe

Nah, but for reals this week has been one of the best. Ever. 

I'll just start with the coolest story. So Paul? (For those of you who have been following, he's the Super cool Samoan investigator that got on date.) We had a lesson with him on Friday. To kind of give some background to the story, he set the date mid January but we were all skeptical as to wether or not he'd be able to make it. He kept refusing to pray and come to church, so there was this un-seeable wall that was preventing him from progressing any further. 

So for the lesson we just dropped the question. "What is keeping you from coming to church?"

He skirted around the actual concern for a little bit, but after some discussion he came out with the actual concern, which was that he didn't want to fail. He didn't want to fall short of what was expected and break these commandments and when he went to church he wanted it to be the first day of the rest of his life.  He didn't want to come short. 

We've tried addressing this concern before, and have talked about how Church is a hospital for those who are struggling, not a museum for people to show off their good works before men. We've talked about how we go into the waters of baptism dirty, and come out clean, we don't go in clean. We've tried talking about all of that before, but it's never hit home. But this time, we sat in silence for a while, and then the spirit kicked in on overdrive. I can honestly say it was one the most spiritual moments on the mission. I think in part because both Elder Prestwich and I needed to hear it just as much as Paul did. 

We explained how, when it comes down to it, there's three reasons we make mistakes. Ignorance, Rebellion and Weakness. Obviously, for those who know of the gospel and the commandments, ignorance falls by the way side and becomes irrelevant. So that leaves rebellion and weakness. When God speaks of unrepented rebellion, it is not good. It just flat out is not good. But when he speaks of Mercy, it is always with mercy, and love and compassion. We shared the well known Ether 12:27 'And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.' and explained that while there are multiple differences between rebellion and weakness, one of the most important is our humility. If we are trapped by 'the sin which doth so easily beset us' and feel overwhelmed by the multiple mistakes we make, we must remember not to confuse our rebellion with weakness. If we remain humble and teachable then God not only CAN work with us, but God WILL work with us. 

Now President Uchtdorf reminds us that "Some suppose that humility is about beating ourselves up. Humility does not mean convincing ourselves that we are worthless, meaningless, or of little value. Nor does it mean denying or withholding the talents God has given us. We don’t discover humility by thinking less of ourselves; we discover humility by thinking less about ourselves. It comes as we go about our work with an attitude of serving God and our fellowman."

So, if you feel like Paul, that you will never live up to the standards the church has set, that is okay. To rebel is of the devil, but remember that weakness is of God. As Neal A. Maxwell put it: "Now may I speak . . . to those buffeted by false insecurity, who, though laboring devotedly in the Kingdom, have recurring feelings of falling forever short. . . .

. . . This feeling of inadequacy is . . . normal. There is no way the Church can honestly describe where we must yet go and what we must yet do without creating a sense of immense distance. . . .

. . . This is a gospel of grand expectations, but God’s grace is sufficient for each of us. "

The love and Grace of God is sufficient for you. Don't ever forget that you are enough! I don't mean that you WILL be enough when you grow up a bit more. I don't mean you COULD be enough if you were more obedient. I mean you ARE enough. You're exactly what God needs right now. Keep improving and working to become, but find encouragement in the knowledge that you're doing well.

Well, sorry this was so long. But I love you all!

Church is true!

Week #70--November 14, 2016

Hello! 

Hope you all had a good week. Just want to point out that scriptural prophecy was fulfilled this week: "For a trump shall sound both long and loud, even as upon Mount Sinai, and all the earth shall quake, and they shall come forth..." (D&C 29:13). Haha, funny stuff. (Don't take that as having a view, because for the next 8 months, I honestly don't have much of an opinion. Just funny wording.)

This week was really good. I can't really make a summary of our good lessons, because we had a lot of good lessons! We were super blessed! We taught 19 lessons, and had so many names on our progress record that we had to staple 2 together for ward council! That's a first for me, so we were very grateful that we were able to see so many people. 

That being said, due to lack of commitment we have to drop quite a few of them, but that's okay! The one's we are working with are doing great! 

Also Paul Paopao set a date for baptism! January 21st! His family (who are members) are all really excited and were very pumped to talk to Elder Prestiwch and me at the ward party on Saturday. 

Also a woman named Sally set a date, and she's been investigating for about 2 years, so if that happens a lot of missionaries will be very happy!

Also, we had a super cool experience! We saw some teenagers skateboarding in the church parking lot as we were driving away. This bothered me, because... Well... I don't know why! But my first instinct was to tell them to leave... But I decided to try doing it in a nicer way. So Elder Prestwich and I parked and walked out and starting contacting them and then offered to give them a church tour. 2 were super bugged by it and wanted to leave, but one got super excited because he had a friend that was mormon who had brought him to mutual one time. We did a church tour and used the art work to explain our beliefs. The final picture was a big one of the first vision, where we recited the first vision. The spirit was SO STRONG! It was incredible. Right then and there, Aaron (the one who was open from the beginning) agreed to start coming to church and taking the lessons.  

That was an awesome experience!

So all in all, it's been a great week!

Kind of a short spiritual thought, is just that god is the author of peace! also, I was informed that 'Fear Not' appears more times than any other commandment in the whole Bible! I thought that was really interesting and also realized that to 'fear not' is a commandment of God! God casts out all fear, and is the author of peace. No matter where we are or what we're doing, God's life is a peaceful life and he can help us overcome our fears and live in peace. 

Also, an interesting point from Ether 6 that was pointed out to me, is that even though (while the brother of Jared and his Family were crossing the ocean) the winds and waves never ceased, and they were swallowed up in the depths of the sea may times, and trial after trial took place, it was the winds that drove them to the promised land. Still waters don't make great sailors, and motionless boats don't do much sailing! The comforting thing we can take is that those winds "did never cease to blow towards the promised land while they were upon the waters; and thus they were driven forth before the wind."

So don't give up when the pressure mounts! Take a deep breath and remember that God is God. He's more powerful than anything and he loves you and all of this is for your good. Change and progression are uncomfortable, just like crossing the ocean in those boats was uncomfortable, but it is all worth it in the long run. 

Love you all! Church is true!

Week #69--November 7, 2016

Hello! 

This week was good. We had transfers, but Elder Prestwich and I are staying, and so are the other Barstow Elders and we're exiled from the rest of the mission so that's pretty much the only news that effects us, haha! 

Going into this week, I didn't really expect it to be as hard as it was, but it was still good! I've learned that missions are always hard! They don't get easy as soon as you first 6 months are done, or as soon as you get past your year mark. It's always difficult. You never  REALLY get used to the emotional/spiritual/mental/physical strain that comes from a mission. I think in the book of mormon we talk way too much about the thousands of convert, and not enough time about the times their hearts were depressed, the times they were about to turn back, the times they were bound in chords, spit on, smote upon, beaten, scourged, stoned, etc....Like it's very hard. But it's so worth it. I really do enjoy it. My testimony as grown so strong, it's incredible. Like, the church is so true. I love how much the church has changed me. 

So if you remember E.J., the 13 year old boy who had a ton of good questions and knew his bible really well? Well we saw him and asked him if he had read the book of mormon and he said "No, I'm sorry, I'm only in Mosiah." LIKE WHAT THE HECK????? He thought we were asking if he'd read it all and HE READ ALL THE WAY TO MOSIAH IN ABOUT 4 DAYS LIKE WHAT ON EARTH. He's pretty awesome. His parents gave him permission to investigate, so we'll continue to teach him and even if he doesn't get baptized now, I have no doubt that he'll eventually get baptized, because it's all making sense to him. 

We went to a Ghost town last p-day and that was pretty cool. 

A lot of people have been sick this week, so we weren't able to meet with them, so that was rough. But because of that we were able to find some new investigators! 

There are some.... Interesting situations with a lot of the people we're teaching. I guess that's just the way it is in Barstow. That makes it hard for people to get baptized. Also, pretty much no one down here in married, they just live together and that's pretty much the worst. And they're usually too poor to afford a marriage license so R.I.P. 

As a spiritual thought, I want to share this scripture. (from 3 Nephi 8):

and then behold, there was darkness upon the face of the land.

And it came to pass that there was thick darkness upon all the face of the land, insomuch that the inhabitants thereof who had not fallen could feel the vapor of darkness;

And there could be no light, because of the darkness, neither candles, neither torches; neither could there be fire kindled with their fine and exceedingly dry wood, so that there could not be any light at all;

And there was not any light seen, neither fire, nor glimmer, neither the sun, nor the moon, nor the stars, for so great were the mists of darkness which were upon the face of the land.

And it came to pass that it did last for the space of three days that there was no light seen; and there was great mourning and howling and weeping among all the people continually; yea, great were the groanings of the people, because of the darkness and the great destruction which had come upon them.

When I read this scripture, I thought about how bleak out lives would be without the hope of the gospel. I thought about how bleak the day to day would be. Too many people just let their eyes adjust and live on in this darkness... And often we turn of our flashlights and lamps and allow ourselves to live in the spiritual darkness. 

So turn to Christ and find hope in his Atonement. Because of his sacrifice we have hope for a better tomorrow. We can find hope in being a better person tomorrow than we were today! 

I love you all! Church is true!