Great Week

The week here was good, we have been pretty busy. We were finally able to meet with a guy that we have been trying to meet with for a while. He was really open to talking and we had a great lesson with him about the Restoration. On Wednesday, we had a church tour with him with one of our members. It was a really powerful church tour. It is really good to be able to take people to the church prior to their first Sunday coming. Later this week, Eric, one of our recent converts of of few weeks, came to a lesson with Jared to fellowship him and it was great! 

This weekend we had a really good Book of Mormon study class. We have been doing it for about 10 Weeks and have gradually grown in numbers. This past week we had 21 people! It was a our biggest showing and at least 3 or 4 of the people there were people who are preparing for baptism. So that was great. This week, Lynne is getting baptized. She has been going through so much. It is pretty crazy how much she has been getting hit by the opposition, but she has been so hopeful and positive throughout the entire experience. 

We are excited to do a 5th Sunday presentation on that 101 ways to do member missionary work this Sunday. Today was Elder Gutierrez’ birthday!

Amazing Missionary Fireside

Our week out here was really good. Elder Gutierrez is from Las Almas New Mexico. The past few years he has been living in Las Vegas though. He has been out for 9 months. We have been doing really good and have been seeing a lot of cool things happen. This week, I don't really remember a lot. It has kind of been a whirlwind. We had an amazing missionary fireside last night. It was cool to be a part of another one, as we did one when I was in McMinnville Stake in Newberg. We, as missionaries and the stake, have been really pushing this event for the past 6 weeks or so. We had a great turnout! The entire chapel was full and some of the overflow. These firesides are so powerful. And although our numbers as a missionary choir were small, the Spirit really made up for us and delivered our songs strongly. It was cool. President Stevens (Stake President) spoke about keeping our eyes on the Savior. He told a story about a young boy who was asking his dad how to plow in straight lines. The dad told him to pick an object in the distance and keep your eyes on that object. The dad left and came back and the line was straight for a little, and then started looking like an "S". He asked his son what happened with keeping his eyes on an object. The son said that he did. He picked their cow Bessie and follow her and then she walked into the barn and he didn't know what to do after that. I thought that was funny! He gave a great talk about focusing on the Savior. That was really cool and perfect for everyone there. President Tateoka sang Savior, Redeemer of My Soul and that was powerful. Sister McCall was supposed to give a brief testimony, but her car had been giving her trouble all day. She left Portland around 8am and was running really late. It was amazing because the Lord gave us the idea (and actually prompted President Stevens to help prepare Bailey for this) to ask Bailey (a convert of about 16 months) to fill in if need be. And the need was there for her to do that! The Lord truly had her ready and prepared to do that. And she gave a great testimony. Sister McCall walked in right after that and was able to sit and enjoy the program. It was a blessing that she was there to be able to hear and listen to the music and the spoken words. 

Other than that, things are going really well. We are seeing a lot of miracles. We are really busy. Brother Beaver is progressing a lot. He has been to church 8 weeks in a row and is making great progress. Sister Buckley, a lady we are teaching, has been doing great as well. She is getting very close to baptism and we are excited about that. It has been cool to see the faith of the ward continue to grow. A member of the Bishopric brought a non-member family with them to the fireside last night, so that was great! We had a farewell again this week. This was for Tanner. He is going to Uruguay. He has helped us a lot with lessons and it has been fun to see him prepare. We have another farewell next week for Ethan! The missionary spirit in the ward is great right now. 

We got news that Elder Nonu will be transferred to Turner in the Salem stake. It is really close to Stayton. We were definitely not expecting that, but that is obviously where the Lord has need for him at this time. The last 6 weeks really flew by. My new companion will be Elder Gutierrez. He has been out for about a year I think. I am excited to be staying here in High Desert. I am getting a little nervous about this being my last six weeks though. It just feels weird. Our entire district is getting pretty shaken up. One of the Sisters goes home, another is getting transferred, and then we have 5 other elders getting transferred. So it is going to be pretty crazy. Elder Greenwood, who lived with me in Newberg and was trained by Elder Bills & Patterson, is going to be one of our zone leaders out here now so that will be fun. 

The week was pretty good. I honestly don't remember a lot of what happened. It is really hard for me to remember on Monday what happened the rest of the week. We have one sister we are teaching, Lynne. She is in her 60s. She had a good amount of exposure to the church growing up. She is very prepared to be baptized. She has a really hard health trial, which makes things hard. On Friday, she had a really hard day with other things as well, so after our lesson we gave her a blessing. She showed up to church on Sunday glowing. She was so happy and she did not even have her walker! She loves church and loves the feelings that she is feeling. It has been really amazing to see how far she has been coming. 

This week we were also able to help a sister move. She is not a member, but we have met her a bunch of times since I have been here. When Elder Nonu got here, she finally started opening up and being willing to talk with us! She apparently lived with Tongans in California, one of which being one that Elder Nonu knows. So that really softened her heart. She reached out to us this week because she was moving to Idaho and really needed some help. We were able to contact the Elder's Quorum and they did a great job of showing up to help. Overall, I think that there were 12 of us there. As she pulled in with the Uhaul, she was in tears. Originally, she was supposed to be waiting for us with the Uhaul ready at noon. Well, the owner of the Uhaul had a flat tire, so he was not able to get it to her until near 1215 and she didn't show up until 12:30. As a missionary, this is kind of nerve-ra

cking because you have a bunch of members who are just standing around waiting. But now as I am typing this up, I think that it is important that she was late, because she was able to see this force of people standing there ready to help her when she pulled in. I think that is pretty cool.

We had a good fourth of July. The ward had a breakfast and we had 4 people that we are teaching show up to participate! One miracle on that day was that we went by with Stan to pick up Brother Beaver, a man we are teaching. He lives right next to Crystil and her family. Right when we pulled up, Angelica (Crystil's daughter) texted us saying that she did not have to work. It was just a blessing because we were able to go see if she needed a ride to the breakfast, which she did, and she was able to attend. 

Eric's Baptism!

Our week was good. It was really busy. We had an exchange this week with the Elders in Cascade Crest. It went really well. During the exchange we met a lady who has run into missionaries three times within the past few weeks, so she thought that was interesting. We had Zone Conference this week, which was really good. It was really good to be able to see some of the missionaries in the other Zone, like Elder Oswald. A lot of the missionaries that came out around the same time as me are going home, so it was weird to here all of their final testimonies before they leave. It has been really cool to see how much the mission has changed since when I first got here and to see the impact that President Tateoka and Sister Tateoka have had on the missionaries in the mission. The highlight of the week was Eric's baptism. Eric has a very strong testimony of Jesus Christ and has a very strong knowledge of the Bible. We have been teaching him for a couple of months and it has been really cool to see the changes that have been made in his life as he has started to learn more about the Gospel and read the Book of Mormon. But specifically as he has started to come to church. The first time he came to church was right at the beginning of the transfer. He was struggling to make it out to church, and Elder Nonu just asked him, "If Jesus Christ was here inviting you to come to church, would you come?" That really changed his perspective and ever since then his progression has taken off! That was really cool for me to see how simply Elder Nonu put it and how much of an impact that it had on Eric. The baptismal service was great and the confirmation on sunday was really good as well. 

 

We are seeing a lot of miracles with finding people to teach and with the people that we are teaching having desires to progress and work towards baptism. The faith of the members in the ward has been growing steadily over the past five months. I have been thinking a lot about that and about how important faith is, especially as we unify our faith as children of Heavenly Father. As the faith in the ward has grown, more miracles are happening. I believe that as more miracles continue to happen, the faith in the Savior preparing the hearts of the people here will grow in the ward. As that faith continues to grow, I think our faith as a whole to stretch out of our comfort zone and invite our friends and acquaintances to learn will grow, and in turn we will see more miracles. I am learning a lot about unity and how essential it is. There really is no limit to what the Savior can do. Things can change everywhere if our faith as members of the church and children of Heavenly Father is unified in the Savior.