The Power of the Scriptures in our Daily Lives

As I have noted last week I have a more difficult area. However, there has been a scripture which has motivated me recently that I want to share. In the Book of Mormon in Alma 8:8-18, we read the story of Alma a missionary teaching to the people of the city of Ammonihah. When he got there he noticed that "Satan had gotten great hold upon the hearts of the people". However, "Alma labored much in the spirit, wrestling with God in mighty prayer, that he would pour out his Spirit upon the people." Alma comes in and tries doing the same thing he has done in the other cities, but it is not working. I imagine he's getting frustrated, upset, overwhelmed. It states that the people "hardened their hearts, saying unto him: Behold, … we are not of thy church, and we do not believe in such foolish traditions.  … thou art not the chief judge over us…"  and if that wasn't enough they "withstood all his words, and reviled him, and spit upon him, and caused that he should be cast out of their city". 

As you can imagine Alma. This solo missionary if he wasn't feeling frustrated before I imagine now was pretty dang ticked off. It describes him "being weighed down with sorrow, wading through much tribulation and anguish of soul," but as he was leaving the city "an angel of the Lord appeared unto him, saying: Blessed art thou, Alma; therefore, lift up thy head and rejoice, for thou hast great cause to rejoice; for thou hast been faithful in keeping the commandments of God."  Now this is one of my favorite parts. At times we all feel frustrated, we feel unbalanced or overwhelmed. In this life no matter where we are, we can feel the peace that comes from the Savior when we remember the God and the Saviors love for each and every one of us. When we are obedient to the commandments and diligent to do service for the Lord. 

Now that was not all the angel said. He continues by saying. "return to the city of Ammonihah, and preach again unto the people of the city" Notice that at times our trials aren't taken away from us, but the Lord will provide a way for us to accomplish his task. Alma responds, "Now it came to pass that after Alma had received his message from the angel of the Lord he returned speedily to the land of Ammonihah. And he entered the city by another way." Notice how Alma quickly turns around, I like to he was running and not dragging his feet. This is such an amazing example to me of obedience. For those of you who know the story he ran into his future missionary companion Amulek and they both enjoyed the blessings of God by opening the hearts of many, many people. 

As a missionary I promise that you can feel this inner peace as well. That God will provide the way for each and every one of you as you turn to him. Be obedient to his commandments and he will bless you.  These things I promise in the name of Jesus Christ amen.

We had a baptism this week, it was crazy. Nobody had the keys to the church and when we finally found those keys we did have keys to get into the font.  I eventually had to jump over the class screen into the baptismal font and unlock the door from the inside and after that everything went well. 

We have been praying for help to find new people ready to hear our message.  We found people who actually want to learn and had some key questions for us. Like why are there so many churches, what age should you get baptized, should we go to church if we have a bible and who has God’s authority? 

We are now going to focus our biggest effort in looking for others in this area.  This has been a refreshing week. 

Lastly, regarding how I am feeling. Like it says in Isaiah 58:8 - Then Shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily; and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be they rearward. - I'm great!

Monster Week

Good news everyone! My comp is sick, how is that good news you may be asking yourself?  Now I actually have a bit of time to write a letter. Yay!

First of all, I am in a new area called Conception, where I am still serving as the district leader. Like Almirante or Boquete the distance of my area is huge. I can take an hour-long bus ride and still be on the inside of my area. However, for the first time, I have an area that touches the borders of Costa Rica. I have been joking about sending my companion over to see what they have. In this area, we have two branches, one of which we can see right in front of our house and the other is about a twenty-minute walk.

Here we are having trouble finding nuveos people to teach. All the mission programs we have done in other areas to bring success have fallen short here.  Normally when we contact by doing cosechas and we come back with around on average three families that we can visit during the week. Here we find specific people that we ask for and they reject us. I have been trying other programs and other forms of contacting people, but we are not finding really any success here. This week, I got to a point where I just felt burnt out, stressed and just frustrated. Normally as a missionary as you have these days you just go home to the family. In every area you find that one family who loves the missionaries. You become best friends with them and they adopt you. You comfortably call them Mom and Dad instead of Brother and Sister. If you show up uninvited at 8:00 PM they are excited to see you there.  They want to see how the work is going and they want to hear about your day as you then take a mental break.  The family that we have here has been having family problems and it is not a safe environment to be in right now.  So, as we have been doing everything we can… we are hoping for a new family to adopt us. I think I’ll make flyers and start handing them out at church.

Upside, Elder Bivings has been training me on how to be a leader.  I haven’t had anyone who had done that before and I am really learning quite a bit. I am very appreciative of that. We got called to a surprise division after a conference with our leaders. At first, I wasn't pleased because it only takes one-minute to per warn us via a phone call or two minutes through text message. I would also need to travel and I don’t like wearing the same sweaty clothes two days in a row and not having anything to eat. What ended up happening was that an area at the last moment needed a baptismal interview and I was able to go on divisions again with my favorite companion Elder Cotonon. That five minutes changed everything. From feeling tired to rolling on the floor laughing.  It just made me forget about all the stress and re-motivated me.  I don’t know what it is about that man other than we just click well together. That was a HUGE blessing. As well, Elder Bivings came back and talked to us more about how difficult our area was which was good to know and understand with what we were already experiencing.

Elder Cotonon and I

What else happened this week? Well, we accidentally flooded the house. The water went out for an hour or so and while I was trying to wash clothes. As we left, we both thought the faucets were turned off, but we came home to a fun disaster. This week, Elder Mendez, my companion has insisted that he knows magic. He has tried at least eight magic tricks on me and has only been successful with one of them. Thank you for this, because it has been hilarious!

It was called a Monster Burger. It was the biggest burger I have ever eaten. We were just dead and so we were craving burgers and asked around who had the biggest burgers. Did it cost a lot? Yes, but it was 100% worth it and made everything better. WHAT A MIRACLE!!!  And no his one magic trick was not downing this meal.

It truly has been a spiritually filling week and I had my scripture study focused on the importance of studying the scriptures. I promise the more focused we are in reading the scriptures the closer we will come to God. We read in Helaman 15:7-8 the people that read the scriptures were firm and steadfast in the faith. I have been saddened by the people I've seen here who have gone astray who have lost testimonies because of the lack of reading and studying the scriptures. Please daily take the time to read the scriptures. I promise you will feel that connection with God in your life. Through the Holy Ghost; he will guide you, correct you in times of need, and comfort you. I promise you these blessings in the name of Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Give It Your Best

Recently I have started reading in Alma again and recognized something that I have loved and needed that has strengthened me this week.  In Alma 2, it talks about having a huge testimony in the power of prayer. This week I have had a lack of energy which I believe is from just getting over a cold, the transfer (the trip and not sleeping the best) and now walking all day just striving to find new people. This has taken a bit out of me and so it just struck me this week like a light as I read this scripture. I should just be praying for strength. And so, I have prayed for the energy that I have needed. Sometimes I get caught up thinking that I should only be praying for my investigators or the branch or the other missionaries that I feel like I'm asking so much. It has made me think about all the things the prophets, apostles, missionaries had prayed for.  Because of this, I have been jumping around the scriptures trying to cross-reference all the sections about prayer and it has been a huge blessing to me.

Elder Mendez from Honduras and I

We made a lasagna at a member’s house this week which was killer. The first Lasagna and probably the last I'll have in Panama since cheese is so expensive here. 

Today was P-Day and we went to get haircuts. As we walked in the barber said, “Hey Elder!” as he then ran over to the radio to put on Hymnal music from our church. My comp and I looked at each other and then we asked if he was a member.  He replied, “Nah, I just have given haircuts to a lot of missionaries and I thought this would just make you feel like your at home at the temple,” (Side note: All the Panamanians think that we are similar to nuns who sleep in the church buildings.) and so we had a nice conversation.

As we were out teaching this week, I can say that I officially had the weirdest lesson in all my mission. We are teaching a part member family where only the mother and son are members. We started talking with the daughters to find out if there was a night we could meet with them for a future visit. Afterwards, we were able to share a message with the family about the Sabbath Day. As we were talking, one of the daughters mentioned that her mom has tried pushing that on them. She said, that she understands that you just sit down all day and read the scriptures and do nothing else. We explain that while this may be a good thing to do, you are not just limited to just that. We kept teaching and then invited them to church and mentioned that God will bless you as he sees you putting forth the effort to make this commitment.  The daughter then states, “I think its best if you keep your beliefs which I completely respect and I'll keep mine.” And so, we said, “great no problem we aren't going to force you guys to do anything just remember the invitation is always open.” As we began to close peacefully with a prayer, the mom turns complete evangelical in this prayer. She starts asking God to, “forgive his daughters for straight up ignoring him and asking him to touch their cold hearts.” I've never been more uncomfortable in my entire mission. It was like there was a car accident, and as the police came to handle it they also crashed into the two cars and caused an explosion and then as the firefighters are coming to take care of the situation we get carpet-bombed.

Surprisingly, we are still are on good terms and friends with the kids. We went to eat dinner at their house on Sunday and played Uno and Dominos which was fun and yet very intense.

Right now, we are struggling to find new people. We have been looking in the old carpeta de area. Burning the papers that have not been of any help to us. But with high hopes. This week I have been reminded that we can't always choose the challenges we have been given in this life. But what we can choose is how we respond to them. So that is my goal, to give my best effort no matter what weird challenge is in my path.

Now the leaders here have congratulated us on being one of the most successful districts in the zone. The only problem is they now have asked us to baptize four people each this month so that they can reach their goal. We have four recent converts that have been going on nine months without a baptism. Now by no means am I saying it’s not impossible, but we are working diligently to complete it.  Even though it does seem a little unreasonable, my goal is to give my best effort. That’s all God asks for! 

La Concepcion

It is another day of transfers and I am leaving Boquete and heading west to La Concepcion which is about 20 miles away from Costa Rica but still in the Chiriquí providence. The weather is still a little bit cooler than David but not as cool as where I have been.  I have also had my last 20 minute hot shower which was great seeing as though I did not feel well this week.  I will meet up with my new companion Elder Mendez today in David at 3:00 and I will let you know about my new area next week. 

Still Alive

Guess who's still alive! Barely. I recently just had the lovely opportunity of going down to migrations. We live in the interior and migrations were in Panama City. In order to get there last Monday morning, we left Sunday night at 7:00. It took a few hours of just sitting there on a bus and so what did I do with all that downtime? Nothing, and it was kind of nice! I slept, I talked and we found some old newspapers and I tried to teach myself Sudoku again. I became a master at children’s crossword searches. I slept some more. I was literally inside a bus for one day... que va. But hey, this is part of getting to be a missionary.

What exciting things have happened recently? We found a ‘Frank Sinatra impersonator’ (his words not mine), who is just a tiny bit insane. We have run into him a few times in the streets and he’s just wanted to talk our ears off about his knowledge of the world. For whatever reason this week we walked past the same path we have always taken to get to church and we have passed this same barriada a million times. One day was his day off and he was working outside when we passed by and so now we know where he lives. As we came near, he frantically called us in. He had a wardrobe of old business clothes that he wanted to sell to us. We told him we didn’t have money on us, which was true, but he said, “look they don’t even fit and if all you got is a dollar I’ll be cleaning the house and will be a dollar richer.” So that’s how we bought a grandfather’s wardrobe for $1.20 and I now have a jacket for the cold. Then a week later, we found out he went to jail for killing his father. So… I actually have a murderer’s jacket. I think I will pass on wearing it.

We met with a guy from Tennessee who is an ex-Army, ex-rugby player, and full-on hippie. He is this huge guy who looks twenty years younger than he should be just because of his physical condition. He shared with us a few stories of his life. Including, but not limited to: how he got to Panama, how he got out of the army, and how he saw a U.F.O. (swore by his heart that was before he even started smoking, so he knows it was real).  He also explained how he became who he is today, which is a huge nature lover. From what he explained to us he took his favorite parts from other churches: part Buddhism, part Hinduism, and part of the Baptist church. His goal was to be reincarnated in life until he gets it right. Well, we shared a small message with him about how you shouldn’t just throw in the towel just yet. How Jesus died for us so that no matter who we are or what we’ve done, we can change the bad to become good and change the good to become…great!

This week this Elder in the district who is a little newer to the mission shared that he was having trouble finding people to teach through doing Cosechas. We prayed together to be divinely guided where we need to go. As we left and started looking, he wasn't feeling anything. I explained to him as it says in Galations 5:22-23, the feelings listed come from the spirit. We may not get this overwhelming heart-tugging feeling every time and a lot of times it’s going to be a soft feeling and as always if it's good it comes from God. He will not steer you wrong and so let’s keep going. Then he said, I feel this house a little, but it looks locked up no one looks to be inside. I said, “What’s the worst thing that could happen, that no one will be there or that they could say no!”  We ended up knocking on the door and then out of nowhere a taxi wheels up and the passengers leave the car right as we were out front. This was a great opportunity, as we left them with a blessing. It was nothing short of a miracle and what an amazing teaching experience.

Elder Moore has set a goal this week of highlighting his bible. He decided to mark every word that comes directly from the Savior’s mouth or is directly being quoted. About the third day into just painting over the New Testament my companion yells, “Good fudge! Why does Jesus talk so much?!” I just fell out of the hammock laughing. Yeah, that’s my comp. How I love him so.

Recently, in the ward, we have had a chance to talk with the leaders of the Relief Society, Primary, and Elders Quorum and teach them how to conduct a consejo de presidencia, which they had not been doing. Now they were very good at identifying the problems. We did alright with finding solutions, but a big part for them that they were missing was taking their suggested solutions and praying as a unit to God to ask him if it was okay and His will. After we started doing that with everyone, you could feel the presence of the spirit more abundantly. It made a world of a difference.