Stand up for what you believe in!

Another crazy, hectic, but fulfilling week. 

Seriously. 

We are being blown out of the water with blessings. It's unreal. There are people coming out of the wood works being prepared. We were walking down the street in the rain when some guy sitting on his porch greeted us with a nice, "Hello Elders! Good to see ya!" My companion and I decided to go over and chat with him, and he told us we wants to get baptized. That doesn't happen everyday haha. He's been going through some hard times, and he told us that he needs the church in his life. His name is Byron and he's in his 50s. Super good guy.

We have a huge chuck of the Indian Reservation in our area...it's called Fort Hall. It's a whole different world over there. Everyone lives in trailers, it's tax free...but man it's depressing and it's dangerous. Even the trees over there look scarier. We had a get a proselyting permit to preach the gospel from the tribal members. Pretty interesting. Anyways...A family somehow got in contact with one of our bishops and expressed the desire to come to church. They came, then we had a lesson with them and extended a baptismal date..which they accepted! They have a pretty crazy story. It's just the mom and her two boys. The Dan family is their name. The mom has had two ugly divorces. In both situations the husband would beat her and her kids. They were also thieves and cheaters. It was sickening to hear some of the things that her husband(s) would do to her. She finally got out of those situations and she wants her kids to know what it's really like have a happy family. The gospel of Jesus Christ offers that. 

As I told you before we were working with the lady named Maria Lopez who was preparing for baptism...yeah, she left to Mexico.        

....Man, if people would just LIVE the gospel...so many people wouldn't be in the situations they're in. Trust me, there are some sketchy parts here in Blackfoot, and they could use a little gospel in their lives.

This weekend should be exciting. We have Elder Carlos A. Godoy from the Seventy is visiting our mission...so can't wait for that!

Have a fabulous week and stand up for what you believe in. 

Catching up!

From a sister in Blackfoot:  "We had some elders for lunch and we got to meet your son. Thank you so much for sharing him with us here in Idaho!"

Well good update from home! What a crazy story about Elder Randy Phillips! GO him for recognizing that! Man...we get anti mormon trash thrown at us from time to time. I was in walmart the other day and this dude came up to us and starting telling us about some dna test that said the nephites actually came from asia and not from jerusalem...proving that joseph smith was a fraud. Haha he gave us a card with his number so we could talk to him more about discovering the "truth." We left him our card with the invitation to read and pray about the book of mormon. most people who go anti are usually not doing the basics such as reading and praying...so don't forget to do that!!! Helaman 5:12!

We spoke in sacrament meeting on sunday. Our topic was prophets! I focused on Thomas S Monson's last general conference talk about Love. We received many compliments...so i think we did a good job keeping everyone awake haha.

It rained like crazy this week!! Our basement study room got flooded so right now it's in the process of being dried...it brings back wonderful memories of our basement back home...every rain storm there was a flood lol. We were actually outside proselyting when it started to rain. We knocked on a door and this lady named Maria Lopez let us in because i think she felt sorry for us. We got dried off and taught her the restoration. She accepted a baptismal date for September!! but yeah, the whole city of blackfoot was flooded, it was awesome. 

Carlos is doing great. We taught him the word of wisdom and tithing. He accepted to live both of those commandments. He continues to progress =)

This week has been soooo hectic, but so rewarding. I feel like I'm a more useful instrument in the Lord's hands. My spanish is so much better, and I just know what i'm doing. i'm looking forward to the upcoming months ahead with the knowledge that i have gained.

Well, that's awesome that there are lots of baptisms happening in the ward. That makes me so excited! Keep up the great work. 

***

O! Mark is in Ammon right now, my first area. I won't get to see him too much but I knew I would pass by him on transfer day. The transfer bus came and all these missionaries got out...but I still didn't see Mark...I was pretty worried! I looked all around and eventually I saw him still in the bus sleeping with his head against the seat lol. I just started to laugh and then he woke up and we had a lovely reunion hahaha. Ahhh! It was sooo cool to see him! he is still not used to the missionary schedule. Long hard days of work, wake up at 6:30 and going to be at 10:30...lol, I'm still tired all the time but you get used to it. 

This week was another test of our faith. Kaylen was preparing to be baptized on August 9th, but we heard from her fellowshippers that she will be out of town for the rest of the month...and she didn't even tell us! man...i was so depressed that day. It seems like the adversary does everything he can to prevent God's children to be baptized...but that means we have to keep searching and looking for those that are ready. The Lord blessed us with another man that was being prepared. Carlos Gonzalez. We taught him at the bishop's house and we had a powerful lesson about the Plan of Salvation and the role of the Savior. We extended a baptismal date for September 13th, and he accepted. He has had such a rough past, but it's just so cool to see him go to church and see him feel the spirit. 

Thanks dad for sharing those things. That's so awesome. You definitely have a gift of balance in your life. That's something that I've been learning to do better is delegate and balance everything in the day to day affairs of missionary work. It can be brutal at times, but managing your time is key. That's so cool that you regularly talk with the missionaries and the ward mission leaders. I just ask that because my companion and I are trying to get new ideas to excite the members and the bishop about missionary work in one of the wards that we cover. We had a correlation with the Stake President (he is a beast btw), and he was telling us some things to do to increase member involvement with missionary work. He is all about missionary work =D

So all in all, it's been a roller coaster week. My new companion is suuuuper shy and soft spoken. I'm trying not to dominate everything and let him take the lead on finding and teaching haha. Yeah...he's just a super quite guy, it drives me nuts sometimes, but he's a good kid. His dad is a mission president in Chile. His Spanish is pretty good too which is awesome. Btw...my spanish has gotten so much better. for some reason it's just clicked the past couple of transfers. woo hoo!

Anyways...have a fantastic weekend!

***

Well this Wednesday is transfers. My companion, Elder Meza, will be going home as he finishes up his 2 years of dedicated service. I'm sad to see him go. He's one of the hardest working missionary I've ever met.

I will be with some other missionaries until Elder Cook comes in this Wednesday. Yes, THE Elder Cook will be my new companion haha. Elder Pridmore won't be coming to Blackfoot =( But I will be able to see him on transfer day =D Can't wait for that! We will get some pics fo sho. 

Kaylen is doing great. She came to church again and she continues to prepare for Aug 9th to be baptized. Her friends continue to fellowship her. We taught her the word of wisdom and she is willing to live by it, even though she LOVES coffee haha. We found another part member family and the dad wants us to come over and teach their sons so they stay out of trouble =) We will be looking forward to that. 

The Spanish fiesta that we had was awesome! Carlos Martinez provided us with his legit spanish techno music lol. We had a lot of investigators come, one of them is a family which we are teaching regularly now. They are called the Nieto family! The mom and kids are so sweet, but the the dad is hard core catholic and doesn't like missionaries =( well...looks like we are gonna have to change that. 

I'm excited for the new transfer. There's a lot of good missionaries coming into Blackfoot, and after 6 weeks of learning the area i will be taking the lead and showing Elder Cook the ropes.

The other day we were in a ward council and I learned a LOT about the bishop's responsibilities. This particular bishop was taking WAY too much time dealing with welfare issues by himself to the point that we was getting burned out...the stake president had to give him council on how to delegate that responsibility. 

I know some of the main responsibilities of bishops are missionary work and the youth...but of course there's a lot more like welfare and whatnot. So dad, how do you effectively delegate all the different responsibilities along with making missionary work a focus in ward council? I'm just curious to see you do it.

Being surrounded by members it's pretty cool to see how the church works.

Much love and thank you for the updates =D