Hello one and all! I hope everyone is doing ok and enjoying the holiday season!
Christmas Service
This past Saturday our zone had the opportunity of handing out bags of canned food donated from the bishops storehouse. The pulblic affairs director for the LA area was there and he told us that this was a very unique opportunity because the church usually doesnt do this type of service- welfare style/handing out food for free... He explained that in the churches welfare you dont get stuff for free- you have to trade your skills/whatever you can do etc so that everyone grows. Anyway it was at this African- American church in South Central LA. There was a huge turn out- around 5,000 people. One of the reasons the Public Affairs guy said that we were doing this was to increase awareness/acceptance of missionaries in this area because it was going to be a very well publicized event. We had the opportunity to meet and take pictures with: the mayor of LA' Danny Trejo- movie star in Spy Kids, Machete and others, Beyonce's sister, a VH1 football model lday, another young famous black supermodel, director Robert Townshend and some other people that I cant remember who they were haha. It was quite an expierence doing service (which I have really come to love on my mission) and meeting famous people all at once!
Random Stories
As part of working hard at not having unrealistic expectations of myself/being too hard on myself- I am beginning to recognize the small examples of the Lord's hand in my life/the promptings of the Spirit.
One example is last week when we were out tracting I saw this black lady across the street putting up Christmas lights. She looked busy with that and taking care of three or so little, energetic kids. I thought to myself we should go help with the lights and talk to her. I brushed it off saying nahhh she looks like she doesn't want our help, we are tracting this side of the street, she doesn't speak Spanish and we had just talked to a Latin family on this side of the street etc. But then the thought came again and so after the next house I told Elder Franson we should go help. After a short convo we found out Ms. Watkins wasn't really interested in the gospel and didn't need our help, she was polite but not overly friendly. For some reason we kept talking and we found out she wanted us to pray for her uncle who was very sick in the hospital (this is not unusual for random people to ask us to pray for them- even hobos on the street sometimes ask us to pray for someone) but then we said we could do it right then (more unusual- I have only done that a handful of times...) Anyway she invited us in and we met the family and said the prayer with her mother (whose only brother is the sick uncle) in the prayer the mother started crying and I felt the Spirit a lot. I know that this was God directing the work through me even though they didnt even accept a return appointment let alone were that "golden investigator" ready for baptism three weeks after you meet them. I have no idea what the affect of that visit/prayer was- whether small or life changing that leads them to accept the Gospel later on- but I do know we were lead by the Lord to meet them.
Another one was a miracle we witnessed. A couple of weeks ago one part member family we are sort of working with asked us to give her two year old daughter a blessing so she could sleep through the night without nightmares. I could see how much faith they had in the Lord and even Priesthood blessings even though the very inactive dad could hardly remember what they were called etc... I relied on that strong faith as I voiced the blessing... A week or so later we asked them how she was sleeping and the were very relieved as they told us that she is sleeping very well with no more nightmares thanks to the blessing. Even though they haven't come to church and are pretty hard to contact/teach this was another example of the kinds of things I hope I can be more receptive to and recognize.
I know that I have probably missed a lot of these kinds of things because I was looking for a bigger, more grand miracle/display of the Lord's hand in my life.
The Area/My Thoughts
As I alluded to above- I am realizing that my efforts and desire to serve the Lord and follow his direction through the Spirit is more connected with successfully accomplishing my purpose than I thought. I have been measuring my success as a missionary in comparison to others/outward fruits of our labors- not necessarily baptisms but things like that. I know baptism, church attendance, number of progressing investigators are all part of my purpose but I know that as long as I am honestly doing my best to invite people to come unto Christ- through a return appointment, baptismal commitment, or some other way act on or hear the Gospel I am doing my purpose... It has been hard because I have been in tough areas in terms of outward results of following my purpose. I have alternately beat myself up over not seeing results and used it as a mental excuse to not try as hard- sometimes both at the same time haha.
Anyway we are still doing a lot of finding- mostly through tracting and checking former investigators/less active/part member families... We found a couple of people that have some potential but not too much else is going on. I am doing a lot better at not judging myself when I go on splits and see how much work the other missionaries have... or when I go to a baptism of 6 people for two companionships. I know I just need to work hard and do my best. I am very happy for the other missionaries though by the way... I know that I am here to learn patience with myself among other things. An Elder talked in a District Meeting about President Uchtdorf'sconference talk "Continue in Patience". I loved it.
We are probably going to drop the Flores family (Jorge, Manuel and Elsa) even though they are very nice and love having us over even after some heated discussions about his unwillingness to accept some new and different things. ) He is not very accepting of the Book of Mormon and said that as for him- the only way to "prove" the Bible is true is because it has changed his life and others... I loved it because I was able to bear strong testimony that the Book of Mormon changed my life/is the reason why I repented and went on a mission. He still was pretty hard heated even though I bore powerful testimony and provided his method of "proof" in a very specific way. Nevertheless Jorge (Elsa cant read and Manuel is mentally challenged) said that he will read the Book of Mormon and pray about it but on his own time and would like us not to come by and ask him how it is going- which is what missionaries do... : We will see what happens because they invited us over for Christmas dinner hahaha
I am working hard to catch up on the mission goal of finishing the Book of Mormon in 2010... I am on page 205ish and I am loving reading it! It is amazing how much it seems to change, even since I have been on my mission, as we receive different revelation for different times in our life. Awesome. Good scriptures Mosiah 4:3. Mosiah 26:30, King Benjamin's address, 2 Nephi chapters 2, 4, 9.
Still haven't seen the Christmas devotional which I am sad about...
I am still trying to focus my goals and not worry too much about other things because it is easy to get overwhelmed with all the different ways to grow and change personally that the mission makes apparent in oneself. I am doing very well at not feeding my doubts, and anxieties by thinking about them and instead feeding faith etc by acting like reading the BoM and saying better prayers...
From Our Old Area
We found out from the new missionaries in our old area that Sergio broke the Law of Chastity again this past weekend... They are trying to get him to church, he has only been to a Fireside since Thanksgiving...
We also found out that the twins, Kaela and Korey, are getting baptized after the Holidays and they want us to perform the baptism!
Alex Ortiz is solid and active with his family, his brother is now accepting missionary lessons after we got to know him very well and tried to teach him...
