A Request For A White Christmas From Elder Park!!! Please Help!!

I did get your packages on Wednesday. The crew around the Apartment was amazed that I got 2 MASSIVE boxes and 2 small ones. The Tires are awesome and the batteries useful! Speaking of mail... Elder H*** and I had a brilliant idea. See missionaries around here always get a little down-heartened with out a "White Christmas". Because, you see, there's no snow. Well we thought that we would bring a smile to Elder L*** and Elder T*****'s faces by starting Operation: White Christmas... And Mom I know that you are the lady for the Job.
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Operation: White Christmas

There is no snow here to cause a "White Christmas" but you know what is white? Envelopes.

We want to cause a "blizzard" in the offices and here in the Fort Pierce apartment.

There are 4 Elders living here:

Elder A. Taylor (the same ones I was companions with for 3 transfers.)

Elder Levy

Elder Hunt

Elder Park

We want to enlist the help of EVERYONE possible to send as many letters as possible to them to cause a "blizzard"

The Office address is:

7951 sw 6th st  suite #110

Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33324

Just an idea: Some families are cutting out paper snowflakes to put in the letters/Christmas Cards so they can hang them on the wall.

Mom? Do you think you can help make this happen?

nothing crazy just letters.

*************************************

Week 62 In Ft. Lauderdale....

Well, let's just say things are getting WEIRD here. Just like the family in the pictures that Dad sent me.

Let me give you a little description of Fort Pierce. Its hood. Why does God keep sending me to places like this? I think that He is telling me "LOOK, Elder Park! LOOK! DON'T END UP HERE!" Because you see our ward is broken up into Ft. Pierce and Port St. Lucie. The latter (PSL) is where all of the cool active members live... Ft. Pierce is where all of the less actives live. But that is going to change. You see so far it has been real easy to Bless people and Teach them, just not to get them do DO anything. But we are changing up our teaching methods to get people to keep their commitments, by teaching smaller lessons with simpler commitments. That way we can work them into keeping larger and more important commitments. This week we had an investigator that lives ACROSS the street from the church! say that he couldn't make it to church because it was RAINING... it was barely sprinkling... Another person told us that the scriptures say "you can't serve God and Mormon." Mat 6:24... Look that one up... we met a man that tried to sell us ties... WITH NAKED WOMEN ON THE BACK OF THEM... The Hood... Imma rita book.

But on the bright side L*** came to church and he will be getting baptized this Saturday! He is the MOST solid kid I have ever met. He is a BOSS. All he wants is to do the right thing and to start a new life here in Florida. So that's really good.

Thanksgiving was a BLAST. We had 3 meals, the first at 1 the second at 330 and the third at 6, ALL were amazing, we took a few pics I will send them to you. The First was the P******'s. Sister P****** is a long time member but her husband was only baptized about 3 months ago, and he is doing SO WELL. He has taken tons of people to see the Meet the Mormons movie. (which did I tell you we got to see 2 weeks ago?) Their food was AMAZIN! They added a little bacon and some mushrooms to the green bean casserole and it was off the hook! Then we went to the G********'s they are from Pleasant Grove, Utah but they practically own half the city down here. They are big investors down here in trailer parks, apartments, storage center, and you name it. They had a Cajun Deep fried turkey that was WAY good. Then we went to the "Fiesta de Gracias Latina" Which was put on by the small Spanish Group in our ward. They BROUGHT every one! They brought members and nonmembers and less-actives and what have you there was easily 50 people there at this one house and there was food left over! It was great!

But the thing was that all those meals were in the Port St. Lucie part of the ward and basically the entire day got shot and we weren't able to get any thing done in our area.

Anyway I thought I would end with a little spiritual thought.

""The Savior wrought the Atonement, which provides a way for us to become clean. Jesus Christ is the resurrected Christ. We worship and recognize Him for the pain He suffered for us collectively and for the pain He endured for each of us individually, both in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross. He bore all with great humility and with an eternal understanding of His divine role and purpose. Those who will repent and forsake sin will find that His merciful arm is outstretched still. Those who listen to and heed His words and the words of His chosen servants will find peace and understanding even in the midst of great heartache and sorrow. The result of His sacrifice is to free us from the effects of sin, that all may have guilt erased and feel hope.""

 —Boyd K. Packer, "The Reason for Our Hope"

In John chapter 3 verse 16 is the Famous scripture:

" For God so loved the world , that he gave his only begotten Son , that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life . "

This Christmas Season the Church has organized a motion, a campaign, an initiative to help people remember that He is the Gift they have produced an incredible and easy to share video that can be seen on christmas.mormon.org  along with 3 simple principles to apply to our lives this Christmas season, Discover the Gift, Embrace it, and #SharetheGift.

It is already helping us missionaries find and teach new people who are sick of the over commercialization of Christmas, and we invite you all do share this video and to apply it to your lives.

Stay Strong, Push on

Elder Parque.

Week 61 In Ft. Lauderdale....

This week was an incredible week.

Elder H*** and I worked hard, we blessed met 12 New Gators and taught a total 24 lesson we literally were running from place to place, working REALLY hard and that work paid we brought 2 investigators to sacrament 1 walked in late, and 1 less active it was a great day.what we learned is that here since we are starting a system we must continue at this pace and next week we will bring these people PLUS the new people, I know that if we put forth our efforts that the Lord will bless us, as we labor he provides fruits. This area is very much different than anywhere I have served so far, here the majority of the people are polite and they love having us in and a round, even when you tell them that they are wrong they tend to invite you back, we normally have to tell some people that are making no progress that we are not going to be able to to come back until they start to read the Book of Mormon. 

I have really learned here a lot already about desires and commitment there are a lot of people here that are "comfortable". They have no desire to improve in their life, and so they don't even when we teach them pure simple doctrine if they have no desires it does nothing to their souls. I have realized that this is one of Satan's tools, complacency. That is why I am so grateful that here in the Restore Church of Jesus Christ we understand the doctrine of eternal progression, that we are never done and that we can always learn more. Many other churches are held by a vicious false doctrine that there is a point of salvation that they achieve and once surpassed there is no need for added search only a maintenance of activity to qualify. THAT IS NOT HOW THE ATONEMENT OF JESUS CHRIST WORKS." it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do." This is the reason that there are ghettos in this world it is the reason for the Hood the peoples desires to change are there but their desire to do work is missing! I think that this is one of the MAJOR  things that God wants missionaries to learn, out on the mission you get to see how various decisions lead to different out comes and you get to see the life that you want to live and the paths that you want to take. This is some thing that I have been applying to my studies to truly understand I really like a talk a bout this similar subject by Jorg Klebingat in the General Conference just past he talks of how to have confidence before the Lord but also about how to keep your life on the eternal life of repenting he give 6 principle that IF and ONLY IF applied will change your life and the way you live it.

1. Take responsibility for your own spiritual well-being. 

2. Take responsibility for your own physical well-being.

3. Embrace voluntary, wholehearted obedience as part of your life.

4. Become really, really good at repenting thoroughly and quickly.

5. Become really, really good at forgiving.

6. Accept trials, setbacks, and “surprises” as part of your mortal experience.

These are the things that the hood doesn't do and the way that we ought to be trying to live.

no aside from that throw down on the Hood.

This week was made incredible by 2 great young men, E***** (17) and L*** (E****** 15) E***** we found at the beginning of the week we is a young man that has been searching for truth and reading different versions of the bible searching for truth even the Koran, but when he got his hands on a Book of Mormon that we left with his mother and now he is running head long towards baptism and full activity, he's been to Wednesday night activities and to church and is reading the BoM faster than anyone that  I know, He really understands and desire  to repent fully and completely he even went and bought himself a shirt and tie for church and asked us to teach him how to tie it. The thing that impresses me the most about him is what his family has said to us when he is not around they say that he literally is changing in his attitude and behavior, and that he is sharing what he is learning and reading with his Mom and Dad, (Mom is a Southern Baptist, and Dad is a Mexican Catholic and they "agree to disagree, but we know what the other believes works") we are trying very hard to get Mom and Dad involved in the whole changing process but they are more interested in learning what he is learning and they support him fully. 

L*** is a 15 year old that I swore was 18 when we first met him, I don't really like blessing kids, but he turned out to be 15 but was very excited to have us over and invited us back to visit his Mom, when we returned the next day his Mom answered the door very excited and told us that she also was a Mormon but when she got involved in the military she fell away, but she is very excited to be getting back and is excited that her son is so amped about church. See in California where they lived a few months ago L*** was getting into trouble with gangs and drugs, she decided that she was not going to loose him to that life and brought him to the other side of the country and here they are trying to get another start on life. He is realizing that his actions and mistakes lead to his mom sacrificing a great job to help him and doesn't want to live that life any more, he is excited to have friends t that are good people and that want to follow God. We are excited about how energized he is about church! he got up at 6 in the morning to get ready for church at 10. they are a definite miracle, they both came to sacrament and that means Half way to a baptism and Half way to a rescue! How awesome!

Elder H*** is an incredible Elder full of energy and hard work together we complement each other nicely. Lots and Lots of good things are happening!

Stay Strong and Push on!!!

ELDER PARQUE!!!

Week 60 In Ft. Lauderdale....

That's Elder Park on the bottom right side.

Here's the scoop.... 

Elder H***:

Good kid from Plain City, out by Ogden

taller than me, he's been out 6 months

He likes Basketball...

We get along pretty good.

The Area:

NORTH.... I was at the southern tip of Florida... now, I only have 1 area that is north of me in the mission... 2 1/2 hours North of Ft. Laud... THERE IS NOTHING HERE... People wear camo here.

The ward: 

English... Only English with a few Spanish people that kinda do their own thing. We are going to change that by trying to start a Spanish branch. Our area is rather small compared to the ward, we go south of Okeechobee rd and north of Midway, look it up on my LDS.org account.

We opened the area. it didn't exist before now, it was nothing...

That means we had nothing, no area book people, no member contacts in our phone, actually no contacts in our phone. We were given a Google Maps print off of our area and a good luck and were sent off. We are living in the apartment that the Old 2 Fort Pierce Elders lived in but with the 2 Zone-Leaders and us 2, that means 4 this apartment was not set up for 4, so that means that Elder Hunt and I have been sleeping on the couches for the last week and tomorrow we will get mattresses form the mission office. There was also not enough food in the apartment, we changed that. So Elder Hunt and I started Tuesday with NO Key Indicators, We knew Nobody and the Zone-Leaders didn't either, they were whitewashing as well. So we just went out and started knocking, we thought that we had found a pretty populated area, but it turned out to be the boonies, we were knocking doors with Dixie Flags and old fashioned porches with crappy fences and beat up trucks, like classic Southern Nowhere. (We keep looking for more but its a small place, kinda ghetto in parts not too much Spanish) We found some cool people, not the most intelligent, but definitely hard working, most people try to leave this place when they grow up but for some reason just keep getting sucked back in! But so far we have been received GREAT the people here are incredibly nice and very hospitable, this is definitely the south! Finally went north enough to be in the South. We ended the week with no one at church but some promising individuals for the coming week that will help us really get this area started.

Not sure what else to say its too early to tell what is really going on here... 

But I will keep you updated.

Stay Strong Push on!

ELDER PARK

Week 59 In Ft. Lauderdale....

This was the only transfer call that I was sure that I knew what was going to happen. There were 4 of us in the apartment I had been here the longest. I was positive that Elder U****** would stay because this will be his last transfer and I figured Elder A******* would stay because this would be his greenie break, and I thought I was bouncing and Elder W****** was staying because someone had to stay! But NO Elder U******, W****** and I all are leaving! That means that Elder A******* is going to have to tell everyone what the Heaven is going on! And where everything is!

It is a weird feeling getting white washed... You know it is not because you did anything wrong it just feels that way a little​... I know its just that the Lord needs us some place else but I am not sure why... but I guess I will go where you want me to go dear Lord but I am excited and SAD to leave this area there are alot of people that I have fallen in love with here, the Espinoza Family, the Ramos Family, the Best Family, Milagros Family, Villate Family, Perez family and MANY MORE, I will definitely will be coming back to visit these people!

This week at the beginning, Elder W****** and I realized that we were in a finding slump. So we decided  that we needed to shoot big! none of this little solo investigator stuff, We be in the business of Families! And so that is what we started our we out looking for we wanted to find 2 families of 3 by Wednesday. We realized one way to do this was to look for and get involved in Part-member families and we found 1 BIG one on Tuesday of 5! then after we net with them I remembered a potential with a Big family we go visit him Boom! another family of 6 wanting to go to church and get Baptized! then as we are out harvesting and we met The Milagros family a family of 4! and there is still the Ramos family of 7 we have a here 1 Jessica on here own, 2 Robin and Kristina together, 3 at the Giler home, 4 at the Milagros, 5 at the Perez home, 6 with the Milnor's, and 7 at the Ramos! WHAT 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 that's alot and they are all incredible! That means there are 28 individual people, that Elder W****** and I get to write Notes about to the New Missionaries here so that they do not get lost. Because this is SOUL SAVING not Soul Losing.

Well that is about all that is going on here I am going to visit as many of them as I can today to prep them for the change.

anyway

Stay strong, Push on

Elder Parque

Week 58 In Ft. Lauderdale....

Here I am!

Mom, You need to make rootbeer... you guys will love this.

5-6 gallons of water

4 lbs of sweetener

6 oz rootbeer extract

7lbs of dry ice

mix it all together til the sweetener is gone then add the dry ice and let it sit for an hour fogging and "boiling" DONT put the lid on (DUH)

thats what we did halloween night.

Apparently, we have deprived our children of homemade rootbeer. We made a at lots of YM/YW Activities when Ryan and I were kids. Now I feel bad. We will need to make some with Leah and Garret.

Our ward had having a "Harvest Festival​" the day after Halloween, there was a pumpkin carving contest. I thought since we had to be home by 7pm on Halloween that I would carve a pumpkin for the contest... THERE WERE NO PUMPKINS ANYWHERE and so my dreams were squashed, but that was ok we ended up spending the night throwing stuff at Elder W******...

This week was a bit difficult we blessed a lot of people but... Nobody wanted to see us again. So we decided to just go talk to a bunch of our Part-member families this week and low and behold, we now have a ton of appointments for the next few days! Ladies with non-member husbands be wantin us around for dayz!

The ward Festival was really good we had a ton of Less-Actives and Non-members there and the Ramos family kids came too, slow but continuous progress with them. But all in all this was a slower week not alot went on, mainly because not alot of people wanted us to teach them but we are trying really hard this week to fix that and make it better. This week my studies have been a bit weird... I started seeing numbers and stuff! 7s,70 times 7, 12, 14, 144000, 3 and all kinds of colors and what knot White, purple, blue, Light, Dark, Black. And I realized that These things are all symbolic and represent much much more than what they appear. I felt all Davinci Code like.

But what I learned was about how much information there is in the scriptures and how the Lord wants us to find it so that we can return to him. That was really what I have leaned this week is that there is so much in the scriptures that we can never take it all in BUT that we must try!

Another thing that I learned was actually similar to what Dad noticed in sacrament meeting. Dad said; "A bunch of kids were getting up to bear their testimonies...but today I noticed something. EVERY ONE of the said “I like to bear me testimony…”. It struck me, most adults say, “I would like to bear…”. How cool that the kids LIKE to bear their testimonies. Even though I’m sure they don’t do it intentionally, how awesome will it be if they always “LIKE” to bear their testimonies and how great the missionaries they will be." I realized that there is a kind of un-said truth that if we all look at it will see where we need to change. You see sadly we don't often "LOVE" sacred or churchy things, we appreciate them and know that they are true, but because they are true causes some slight inconveniences of to some people large inconveniences. To most of us it is "our duty" to go to church, serve our callings, share the gospel. We do it because we know that we should, it becomes part of a checklist of items to do, I AM NOT SAYING THIS IS A BAD THING, because at least we KNOW  that it is true and are doing the things that we are required, but are we doing it out of love? Do we love the things of the Lord? Or are we doing them because we know we need to? I had this realization recently, I often have said "I didn't enjoy going to church before my mission" or something along those lines, and now I am starting to really love it and enjoy my time at church, now I am trying to learn to love the rest I KNOW that it is true now I am working on loving it. That is what I have learned this week, that I need to LOVE the Gospel and ALL of it to have it make a TRUE difference in my life and I challenge all of you to do the same! learn to LOVE the Gospel!

Stay Strong and Push ON!

ELDER PARQUE

Week 57 In Ft. Lauderdale....

The Devil went down to FLORIDA and he was lookin for a missionary to stopa, he was in a bind because a this time. the missionaries were doin a lota.

and so he picked me...

This week was a great week until Wednesday... We used up the last of our miles on Wednesday and so Thursday meant it was a bike day. But we were smart during weekly planning we called a member and he was willing to give us a ride to our first appointment which was about a 30 min ride on bike. So after our appointment I jump on my merry little bike and pedal away for the day. and as I am going to make a turn in front of a fence... I reach for my brakes and pull... nothing... BASH right into the fence... I was furious... Brakes GONE... then as I am looking I see the back wheel is squiggly because of a broken spoke so all in all I am out of luck... See another Elder in our apartment had been having a few issues with he bike so I let him use mine til he fixed his... well he had forgot to tell me my brakes were almost gone and that he had started to hear a click and chirp in the back...  this is what happens when you are nice!

oh and did I tell you that it was POURING THE WHOLE TIME? not raining, NO it was as if the entire Gulf of Mexico was over our heads and kept falling on us repeatedly. My BONES were wet! that's how soaked I was!

so what do we have to do? Walk home... In the rain... so after that wonderful trek back home we dry up and call one of our APs to see if he had any solutions (give us 15 miles so we can got to the bike shop, quick easy problems would have been solved) he was busy so his suggestion? Ride the bus... it was 5pm by the time were caught the Bus nearest us at 5:45pm and rode to our appointment we would have had and 30min to teach them and catch the circle bus that goes up and around and goes back to our home AND WE STILL WOULD HAVE HAD A BROKEN BIKE THE NEXT DAY! So I ignore that advice and call our Zone Leaders, and get some good advice they would becoming down the next day, so they brought me one of their bikes and helped us calm down they are great guys.

 ANYWAY I WAS FURIOUS still  am a little.

The next day wasn't to much better, so members needed our help unloading a uhaul truck into a storage unit ant 1000am and they could not give us a ride because there was no room in the truck and they were taking the bus back... oh it was STILL FREAKING RAINING!!! and when we get there all we do is stand around and wait for them for 20min then move 4 mattresses and they say "now we will give ya'll a break..." we told him we didn't have a lot of time and we would rather just move the stuff and he said well "I need a break, but you guys can go now we really only needed help with the beds..." oh and the Beds STUNK and were greasy bleh!... not the cleanest family... BLEH!!! so then we bike back home in the rain after doing NOTHING!!!!

So you can see that I kinda had some set backs in the whole "Becoming an Angel" thing... you see there is more to that then scripture study and... well I missed in on the whole be patient and long-suffering part... I kinda ranted and raved and raged and reviled and rattled until I was blue in the face then I got over it... but lets just say it was not my shining moment.

Other than that Good things are happening with the Ramos family! We finally got the father to church and now are working on getting them to really work towards a date. They are making friends in the Ward and they got invited and went to a members Block party and are excited about the Ward's Harvest Festival the day after Halloween. Good things! We have found a few new people and are trying to help them build their desires, I yelled at a thug dude named Sergio about how he needs to fix his screwed up life so that his kids don't end up in the same hole he is in... I literally heard a voice keep whispering in my ear "louder" and "bolder" to the point were I told him "enough excuses! God's telling you to fix this! this is an opportunity! TAKE IT!" and it worked... A lot... he said thanks I will but you gotta help me so we are going to... So hey the spirit speaks...

Anyway LOVE Y'ALL

Stay Strong Push On

Elder Parque

Our continued email conversation:

E. Park:

we are looking right now for a Pastor or Preacher to convert and teach his congregations

Me:

Good plan! Any of them in the near future?

E. Park:

not yet but close we are working with this chill dude that's a deacon in his church... he was amazed when we told him that we were deacons​ when we were 12.

Me:

Haha! That’s awesome!

Speaking of… About 2 weeks ago, one of the Deacons dropped his water tray. He bent down, picked up the tray and left all the cups all over the floor. He was so embarrassed, he just went to the back of the Chapel and stood in line. Cute Jacob W****** walked over and picked them all up. 

E. Park:

he's a good kid... how are they doing? hows Syds mission?

Scotts nearing his return isn't he​?

And the Wells girl?

Whats Dallin up to?

and Will?

 Me:

They are doing great. Kelsey was accepted to some Fancy Artsy Fartsy High School in the St. George area, so she moved down there with her Gparents in early Sept. Syd is doing fabulous! She is a Trainer Missionary and she is loving it. In her Blog from yesterday, she is saying that she has not been happier in her whole mission! She is loving the area and the people. She will be coming home in April.

Nikki Wells will be finishing her mission in December. She is in Okinawa right now and has absolutely loved working there. .

Scott and Dallin are going to be home in January. I can’t believe they are getting ready to come home! They are both only going to be home for a day or so, then off to school. They are both seeing great success in their areas. Scott runs in to funny crazy people and Dallin runs in to scary crazy gang people.  Crazy people everywhere!

Will just got to Texas last week. He is very gung ho and excited to be there. 

E. Park:

And here I am ranting and raving over Rain and a Bike... I do Love it here and would not trade this for anything in the world, the people here are so interesting and unusual...