Woah, that is so very sad to hear about, I remember both John and Bryan and I can't believe it. My prayers and love do go out to their little families. It brings
joy that they were such amazing men in the church. While their kids might be
missing a father, I know that John and Bryan set a good example for them to follow and it is amazing that
the Gospel allows us to have knowledge of the life to come.
Yesterday, that wonderful and sweet Old Cuban Lady, Nelsa,
was baptized. Manuel the Old Cuban Man we baptized in February, performed the
baptism. It was amazing to see that it is never too late to make those changes
in your life the both of them lived long full lives, had habits of drinking
coffee, smoking, and other things, but the both of them made those changes
because they realized they had found the truth. And that is a miracle and
wonderful. And I like what Dad said, "Now is the time to repent, do not
procrastinate, you don't know when you are leaving this world" the fact that
in 2 weeks they went from not knowing anything about the gospel to becoming
members and committing to live the commandments is amazing. They BOTH
volunteered to work at the temple open house on Sunday as well is truly amazing.
This week we had a specialized training with President
Anderson. It was a much needed call to repentance for the misision. Nothing big
had been happening in the mission or anything like that, but there was beginning
to be pride in the mission. We have been having so much success that we weren't
relying on the Lord enough and we didn't have the sense of urgency that we
needed and therefore were not seeing the success we were used to and then
getting discouraged and therefore not qualifying for the success that we
wanted. And as you can see there becomes a cycle and we needed to break out of
it. A quote from when Elder Kopishke came has really struck me in the last were
days. He applied it to missionary work specifically but it applies to all
things in life. "Don't take the credit for success, or the blame for
failure" now when he said this he was referring to the nothingness of man
and the greatness of God. He doesn't mean that we shouldn't be excited for our
successes or the effort we put in that was rewarded nor that we should be un-confident
that we can do it, but that we need to look at where all the success comes
from. It is a gift from God, everything in our life, our Talents, the
opportunities that fall into our lap and the situations that align just right. We should always give thanks to God for those things and the difference that it
makes in our lives. And so that has been the basis of my personal study lately
how I can avoid pride. It's an on going battle I have found because as soon as
you start to study it you find out there was a lot of pride in obscure places
deep inside yourself and as you begin to work on that, you begin to feel
pride that you are trying to be un prideful. So that's funny, try not to
become prideful and then it happens.
It is amazing to hear that Grandma and Grandpa finally got their actual Mission call this week. The email I got from them went a little like this:
DO NOT EAT THE PACKAGES OF FREEZE-DRIED APPLE SLICES AND BANANA AND
STRAWBERRY SLICES.
And that was the first email I read... haha I just thought
it was funny how bold and urgent (and caring) they are! (There was a recall on the fruit slices.) But they didn't say anything about the call. I am excited to hear
what all is involved in the mission! A whole week at the MTC will change a
person, let me tell ya! It's like a spiritual blender, helps you see that the
mission is REALLY bigger that you thought.
It's great to hear Garret and Leah are doing great, Leah's
got to send me a pic of her painted glass, and that Grandpa's doing good, I hear
radioactive Iodine causes tails, not glowing. (Mr. Smarty Pants! hahaha!)
Elder T***** and I had been trying very hard to get referrals from members and help them become more involved in missionary work, like we know that we are supposed to do. But, little success had been seen, we knew it was what God wanted us to do and that we would be blessed for our efforts.On Friday, we received a referral for a man named Ricardo. We showed up to teach him at the street corner that he asked us to meet him at and he was a man we had OYM'ed (Open Your Mouth, talk to someone on the street) a week or so earlier. We taught him the simple doctrine of prayer and that God wants to hear him pray and will answer his prayers, then when the spirit was highest we invited him to be baptized and he excepted! He was so excited to get baptized he didn't want to wait until next Sunday, at church he told us that he wanted to get baptized right then! As we put forth our effort to be obedient and continue doing what we had been asked to do even though it was difficult the Lord blessed us with an amazing referral.
Anyway this was a good week!
STAYIN' SCRONG n' PUSHININ ON (spent alotta time in da
hood dis week)
ELDER PARK
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