Conference Week

 Hey guys, so conference was a blast wow! All the talks were amazing that I listened to. Third hour didn't start here until 9, so the other elders didn't watch it until Sunday. I was really confused about why they were all watching the women's conference session until afterwards they told me that they didn't do women’s and men’s separate anymore at third hour. Whoops. But I'll get around to watching it tomorrow. 

 

The big theme I focused on was on not judging others, learning to rely on the Spirit, and having charity for all those around you. I had an especially strong reaction to one talk on Sunday afternoon. It struck me on the importance of obedience in the mission field combined with charity. It was Bishop Budge's, and it struck me powerfully. 

 

I was thinking about the nature of the mission and its relationship with happiness. I wrote in my notes that we can have 100% obedience/diligence, but if we are doing it, because we want pride or glory or any reason other than because we have charity, it's the same as if we have 0% obedience and diligence. Something the Spirit added to his words that I really liked was that if you're a consecrated missionary, then the mission isn't a sacrifice; it's a pleasure. Now let’s add onto that a little bit. The mission requires sacrifice; that is fact. We sacrifice our time, our health, our desires, our dreams (sometimes) and our plans. That is not happy in and of itself. But discomfort comes from sacrificing that which you love for that which you don't. That's just a bad deal. It’s a value trade. If you don't love the people you teach, if you don't love the members, if you don't love the Lord, there is no ultimate reason for you to serve a mission. You will sacrifice your might, mind and strength, but not your heart. You're trading that which you do love, (yourself) for that which you don't. Now that might be obvious to some, but it didn't always click to me. 

1 Corinthians 13:2-4

2 And though I have the gift of ^aprophecy, and understand all ^bmysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.

3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the ^apoor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

4 ^aCharity ^bsuffereth long, and is ^ckind; charity ^denvieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,

This really puts it into better words than I could. It doesn't say that it’s not possible to do good without charity, it says that it profiteth you nothing. Mormon took this to the next level and said if you have not charity, you ARE nothing. Turning the phrase of Gordon B. Hinckley, "There is no point of doing missionary work if we don't hold onto the fruits of our labors." No point, 0. That's because baptism without persevering until the end is nothing but a checkmark in a missionary’s to-do list: a statistic, nothing more nothing less. You can baptize without loving, and maybe it will work out well for the people you teach, but the harsh truth is that at the end of the day you will still be nothing. Now all this isn't a cry to stop being obedient and diligent because if you don't have charity there's no point. The opposite, "pray to the Father with all the energy of thy heart, that ye may be filled with his love," is Mormon's simple invitation. Once you have charity, you will want to be obedient, want to be diligent, and want to be humble. Your might, mind, and strength will follow your heart. 

Or in summary

If, Love of things sacrificed > Love of Lord, then missionary = sad

If, Love of Lord > Love of Self, then missionary = Happy

... that simple 

And guess what, the scriptures say it, too!!!

1 Samuel 15:22

"To obey is to better than to Sacrifice"

Why is obedience better than sacrifice? Doesn't obedience denote sacrifice? Yes, but obedience is a measurable effect of our love of God. Christ said, "If ye love me, keep my commandments." He didn't say if ye loved me. Love comes first, then obedience, which will lead us to willingly sacrifice to Him. God does not need us. Sorry, that's the unfortunate truth. He is capable of doing His own work. He doesn't just want us to sacrifice our time and our talents because He needs Elder Bassett to help Him out as He is just WAY too overwhelmed. He wants us to fulfill our callings out of love, and He wants us to do it with a willing heart, because we need it.

It says in 2 Nephi that Nephi lived "after the pattern of happiness," not a happy life, but Nephi followed a pattern. Alma says that the two times where the Nephites were the happiest were when they followed Nephi, and when they followed Captain Moroni. (Alma 50:23) The people who followed Nephi were at war against their brothers and nephews and cousins. The Nephites at the time of Captain Moroni were in a constant state of war and bloodshed. Surely happiness didn't come from their circumstances. What then? Well, when Moroni called the faithful to fight for their God, what happened?

Alma 45:15

"And those who did belong to the church were FAITHFUL; yea all those who were true believers in Christ took upon them, GLADLY, the name of Christ...the people came RUNNING together with their armor girded about their loins, rending their garments in token, or as a covenant, that they WOULD NOT forsake the Lord their God." 

Or Nephi, "I did persuade my brethren, that they might be FAITHFUL, in keeping the commandments." He didn't convince them to keep them, he convinced them to keep them faithfully. What’s the difference? Have a fun personal study. 

This didn't make a lot of sense. If I write a talk, I'll work out the thoughts a little better, I'm just in a hurry. Gotta go, a lot happened this week, but it’s kinda the same old stuff. Bye!

 

 

Best Week

So before I start. Really eventful week, one of the best of my mission. I had so many spiritual experiences, and the Spirit was present in so many of our lessons. It was a lesson to me that if we can do our part, the Lord will take care of us.  

Tuesday:

So today started off really well. We had a lesson with a guy named Willian. I can't recall if I had met him last week or this week, so this might be a recap. But he's awesome, a really special guy just going through some rough times. I was so glad to get to know him, and we were able to drop him off a Book of Mormon. I went through and highlighted and annotated a bunch of up lifting scriptures for him. Those scriptures proved useful again later in the week. He said he went through and read them, and they helped him out which is really awesome. After that, the Haitian elders asked us for a ride to the church, and to chaperone a chapel tour with them and one of their friends. When we got there, the zone leaders told us that in a meeting with a member of the opposite sex, the meeting has to include another member of your own sex. So instead, they stood out in the sun and had a lesson. I got to watch them invite her to be baptized, and it was so awesome to see. After that, they had some lessons, so we couldn't take them home. We waited for them at the chapel... we ended up being there 11:00 to 6:30 haha. After they finished all their stuff, we were able to go home and eat lunch/dinner after a quick lesson. From there we just had English class with a member named Deborah. 

Wednesday:

Started off by going to a chapel to pick up an English connect book. (The book we use for English class.) Transfers were going on, so there were a ton of missionaries which was awesome. Always nice to see real life people haha. After that I shared a post on my story, with a picture of Jesus and a scripture. And someone messaged me and in said (roughly translated), "Do you really think Jesus was white? And that he was blonde? He was from the middle east." Which was even more confusing because in the picture Jesus had brown hair haha. Anyways, I just said, "Well, I don't know exactly what He looked like, but we know He was Jewish, and this artist's interpretation is more focused on depicting the care of Jesus towards his children." Then I asked him what his relationship with Christ was, and how it had affected his life. We talked about that a little. I introduced the Book of Mormon and promised him that if he read it and prayed, he could know it's true. He was curious, but we'll see how that goes. Then, we had a lesson with a woman named Adrianna. This was an interesting experience. We shared the message of the restoration; it was a super interactive lesson. I have NEVER felt the Spirit stronger during a lesson than there, and yet it ended with her saying, "Church isn't a place; it's in us," and we could tell she wasn't interested. It showed me, that no matter how much testament we receive that something is true, if we aren't receptive, then the Spirit can't help us. Later, we had a lesson with Debora F., and we invited her to be baptized. She said she wanted to think about it and told us she was gonna give us her answer next time we talked. One little miracle; the connection in that lesson was awful. We could barely hear her and vise versa; three times we had to hang up and call again. We knew this was an important lesson and needed to call her. The last time, I said a prayer and simply asked that God would strengthen the signal, so that we could communicate with her. As soon as we called back, like flipping a switch, the connection was perfect; the rest of the time it never even so much as flickered. This may seem small, but it was the most instant prayer I have ever seen on my life, and more importantly, goes to show that by small things, do great things come to pass. Anyways, after that we studied for a bit, and suddenly, I remembered I had put cookies in the oven, and they were gonna burn. That made me remember that we were late for a lesson with Jorge. And so once again cookies save the day. 

Thursday:

You know the deal, weekly planning. A lot less to talk about these days. My Portuguese is getting a lot better, but I need to work on the formal version you use in a prayer. I was asking for help for Willian and said... "Você pode ajudar...... Você pode ajudas..... Tu pode ajudas..... Tu podes ajudar" well, at least I notice when I use the wrong form now, and I got there eventually. Afterwords, we spent 3-4 hours writing a lot of letters to members with unlisted phone numbers. 

Friday:

This was a crazy day. It started off with district counsel, where we had a lesson and roleplay from the Haitian Elders on the importance of bearing our testimony during lessons, making invitations, and promising blessings. This was by far the best roleplay I've had while on my mission. Later in the day, it would completely change my experience in 2 lessons. From there I got home and made some cheesy eggs.... (well, I got the proportions very wrong so more like eggy cheese), and we made some calls. One guy we talk to keeps saying he's interested but when we call, every single time he puts his phone in his pocket. We finally realized it's, so we don't call back. We got the message after the third day this happened and decided to stop talking to him. (This does raise the question of, instead of ignoring us and telling us to call again... why not just say no when we ask if you want to hear a message??? Oh well.) We made some decisions to stop teaching some people, one of whom was a man named Devanir. We had tried calling him repeatedly but he was always busy. About twenty minutes after we made this decision, he called us for the first time and said he wanted to talk to us. We had a lesson later, and he shared that from the moment we opened our meeting with a prayer, the Spirit confirmed to him that we were sent from God. The roleplay we had earlier was fresh on my mind, and I shared my testimony throughout the discussion, and he shared his. He is an old man who is having medical problems. Because of this, we can't visit him as he's in the hospital. But he's such a special sweet man, and I know he is loved dearly by a Heavenly Father. In that lesson, I felt that love as we got to know him. Immediately after that, we had a lesson with a man named Junior. We shared the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ with him. He was an awesome guy, close to our age so it was a lot easy to connect with him and become friends. I ended up inviting him to make the covenant of baptism. He responded positively, and said he'd like to learn more about our faith before making that decision. He then asked "What's the name of your church exactly?" I may have jumped the gun on that invitation. Oh well haha. He then asked if we were the people who had a little blue book and we said yes. Then out of no where he held up a Book of Mormon and said, "Like this?" It was really funny at the time, and all three of us laughed about it. He said he had been given it years ago, and that he wanted to read it and meet with us again. We set up a time next week to talk to him and gave him some stuff to read. It was a great discussion, and we look forward to talking to him in the future. 

Saturday:

So Saturday I did as I do... and made more cookie dough. This time I used some gluten free flour for Sister Lawlor, and they turned out super dry. I was upset with this, because we had had a conversation with Sister Freire where she said chocolate chip cookies weren't that good, and I did NOT want dry cookies to represent why I know that she's wrong. haha Oh well. After that we had another lesson with Willian and got to know him. The more we talk with him, the more I love him. There are so many people on this world who feel alone. It makes me realize how much I've taken granted going to church in my life. Most people don't have a community they can enter into and be cared for. I hope we can create a feeling like that for Willian and everyone else we come into contact with. More and more each day, I realize how much this church has blessed me, and I just want to help other people get that as well. At the end of the lesson, I turned to Elder Bodily and said, "Man, the Spirit takes care of us." As we sacrifice to make God a priority in our lives, He will make us see how we as individuals are a priority to Him.

Sunday:

Started off with Elder Bodily and I sleeping through our alarms and waking up at 8:00. Then we did our personal studies. The night before, Elder Bodily had told me a story in which a priest of another unnamed religion had come up to him and said, "You know where you people got it wrong? Laying on of hands. At no point in the entire Bible does that occur." Now I know the Bible well enough to know that does occur, and so does Elder Bodily. But at that point in his life, he didn't know the Bible well enough to find that. And the guy dismissed him condescendingly. I was thinking about that during my personal study, but decided to put it off my mind and continue reading where I had left off in the New Testament. I opened up and started reading, and almost immediately came across Acts 6:5-6, and you can guess to what happens there. It helped to alleviate my concern and strengthened my testimony that we can find the answers to any questions we need if we look to divinely appointed sources. God has given us so much to testify of the truth. Too many people these days focus on what they don't know, and they lose out the opportunity to learn from what they do know. From there we went to church. There were 9 people in total because it was the 1:00 session. It was a great experience, and it's so nice seeing members in person. Speaking of members, let's talk about Brother Horta. He is AWESOME! No other word for it. It's such a blessing to have him work so much with us when we've had so much trouble getting in touch with other members in the area. He wants to have a barbecue with us and the Sisters so bad. We've tried to explain the situation to him (at this point we aren't allowed to eat with members in order to respect health and safety regulations), but he wants to meet with us. It's so hard for us, because we feel like we are rejecting his love, (especially when juicy steaks are involved) but rules are rules. He asked at one point, if he could call our mission president and explain the situation to him. We explained that it comes from the area seventy, and it's outside of President Mavromatis's control. One day I hope, sadly not today. From there we had 4 lessons, each one with 30 minutes of wait time until the next time. That's the worst kind of day, because when there are cancellations, it leaves you with an unplanned hour and nothing to do. In this case, 3 of them were canceled. Leaving us unscheduled for 3 hours. Oh well. 

All in all, an amazing week. This week especially I've seen the benefits of trusting in the Lord. I would encourage anyone reading this to get on their knees tonight, and pray in humility, and ask to feel God's love in their life. And I promise that with patience and faith you will receive this confirmation. 

This is David; we taught him twice. So awesome, and we loved teaching him. He lives far away so we introduced him to some Portuguese elders in his area. He posted on Facebook about his experience with them, and went on to send someone in the comments a link to the Book of Mormon. It's awesome to see how he's progressed, and what a valiant man he is, but I still wish I could have gotten the chance to teach him more haha. He's such a special person, and I would have loved to interact with him more. 

I'm a chef now, btw, but I guess I still need my mom to make my shopping lists for me; too much meat.

Still a chef in case you forgot. Creating new recipes all the time.