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. 

Miracles and Baptisms

The week here has been really good! We are seeing a lot of miracles and success. This Saturday, a man that we are teaching is going to be baptized. His name is Eric. We had a really good week this week with a lot of our investigators coming to church! We are seeing that the Lord is preparing people in this area. In Alma 13:24 it says, 

"For behold, angels are declaring it unto many at this time in our land; and this is for the purpose of preparing the hearts of the children of men to receive his word at the time of his coming in his glory." 

We are seeing that that is very true in our area. We had a great experience with the Elders in Cascade Crest sending us an awesome referral! They were walking quickly because they were running late to an appointment. All of the sudden, they heard someone whistle at them. They turned around and it was a lady in her 30's. She started talking to them and discussing how she wants to start attending church with her husband because all of her children have been going to different churches, but they haven't found the one that works for them yet. The Elders were able to have a great discussion with her on the street about the Plan of Salvation and now she wants to meet with us! It is really amazing to see how the Lord is preparing the hearts of the people in this area. 

Lots of Good Things Happening

The week here was good. It’s been busy and lots of things happening. We have been teaching a lot of people, which is good. We have three guys that we are teaching that are all doing good on their own right. Two of them are close to baptism. One of them is getting closer. He has been to church four weeks in a row and seems to like it. Josh told us this past week told us that he wants to be baptized, so that will probably happen within the next couple of weeks. 

We had a cool experience this week. We were in an apartment complex and saw a couple that we have talked with a bunch. One of them was on the phone and she was asking about an HDMI cable and how much it costs. We had an HDMI cable in our bag, so we pulled it out and gave it to them. This was a very big miracle in their lives. They saw it as a testimony that Heavenly Father is aware of them. We were able to start talking more and started talking about baptism. He has wanted to be baptized for a while apparently, but has to change because of the commandments. But they both accepted the invitation to prepare to be baptized on July 21st! So that was really cool. We are excited for them. 

Cool Experiences

The week with Elder Nonu has been good. It’s definitely a learning experience for both of us. He is doing well though and he is starting to pick up the language better. It’s just different for him, not going to the MTC. We saw some cool experiences this week. We went to Costco for lunch on Thursday and while we were there, a guy working pest control came up to us and bought us lunch. He served a mission in independence, Missouri. He is only in Bend for the week. Well, a couple of days later, we were really late for lunch and decided to go to Subway (we really haven’t been eating out that much lately because we have been eating healthier.. ) but we got there and got into line and guess who was in front of us? The same guy! He bought us lunch again. It was really nice of him. 

We had a cool experience yesterday. We went in the morning to go wake up one of our investigators. When we got there, there were a couple of people outside. The natural man didn’t want to talk to them because we were already late to wake Eric up and we had church soon, etc. But we decided to do it anyways. It turns out that they were really cool! They had even talked to the Sisters the other day. The one guy asked pretty much why God doesn’t send anyone today because it’s a crazy world. So we told him how Heavenly Father calls a prophet and that there is one on the earth today and they liked that! 

Elder Nonu

My new companion is Elder Nonu. He is from Tonga. He has lived in Seattle for a year, but is not very familiar with America or the English language. We are working on his english and trying to help him to feel comfortable teaching the lessons. He has had a long journey in trying to come out on a mission, because of visa issues in the past. He is actually a few months older than me. And he came straight from home, not going to the MTC. But he is a really good man and very humble. I am excited to work with him until I go home. 

The week overall was pretty good. During the two days that I waited for Elder Nonu, I was with Elder McElreath and Schultz. It was really good. We talked with a lot of people and had a lot of really good lessons. We watched the Day's of Harmony video with one of our investigators, and then afterwards the Spirit really impressed us to talk about baptism. So we talked to him about it and he is going to pray about a date to be baptized. It was really good. We had a really good scripture study class this past week. One of our investigators, Eric, came to the class and after the class we talked about coming to church on Sunday. He works really late into the night, but he told us that we could come wake him up. So we went over in the morning and woke him up and he came to church for the first time! We were really excited about that. At church, Sister McCall bore her testimony, which was really cool to see! She has missed the past couple of weeks and bore her testimony of how she has felt the absence in her heart because of not being there, so that was good.