Mon 9/23/2013 8:52 AM

Life has been good here in Chelsea for the past two weeks with many wonderful experiences, opportunities for growth and many tender mercies and blessing from the Lord. Everything I will write about will be from either 2 weeks ago or this last week (it is all jumbled together now since it has been so long).

After one of our District Meetings we went out with the Sisters- Sister Hileman and Sister Laudie to meet with one of our investigators.  Her name is Micah and agrees with a lot of what we believe, but is very content with her religion because it teaches a lot of what we teach.  Before we went, we went to a little deli for lunch and I felt impressed to do a quick 1 meal fast, so I did and watched everyone eat.  We got Sis. Hileman to play her Ukelele for the waitress there which was fun.  As we went over to Micah's home we prayed and prepped a little bit more beforehand. We ended up sharing 3 Nephi 33 with her, and talked about the Book of Mormon and the Priesthood of God, since we were there to give a blessing of comfort since her husband passed away a little while ago.  We started the lesson by singing a hymn and the Spirit was so strong the whole time!  When we gave her a blessing, Elder Sompi was truly led by the Spirit and said things that were beautiful and that she truly needed to hear.  After the lesson we shared with her the love that we have for her and bore our testimonies.  It made for quite a wonderful visit.  There is so much power in being able to work with Sister Missionaries because they see and handle things so differently than we do and when we are able to work together like that, miracles happen!  After we were filled with such joy and gratitude we said a pray of thanks right away and such a sweet Spirit followed.  It was truly an amazing experience.

That weekend we had an International Dinner at the Church.  There were dinners from where every member in our ward was from.  It was a lot of fun; dancing; music and a lot of non-members that the members brought.  We had our little American dessert table that we all pitched in together for. We couldn't afford anything too crazy, so we just made cookies and brownies.  It was a great time.  We met together and prayed really fast to see what the Lord would have us do to help peak the interests of those there.  During that prayer the Lord, in his great mercy and love, showed me something that I will never forget and am so grateful for.  The Lord truly does work in mysterious ways.

This last week, there has been a lot of correlation with the sisters and other elders about the area and we have a lot of people to meet with now!  We met with a less active family named the Lapops and had two great wonderful lessons with them.  The first was only with the wife and a member we brought with us.  We shared with her how Christ wants her and her family to come back.  That we love them and need them back.  It was a great 1st lesson with them.
This last week we went back and the husband was there.  We had another great lesson with them. They opened up to us and I felt like I needed to share with them an experience I had and had typed up for the digital mission about forgiveness and forgiving others.  It really helped them open up and strengthened our relationship with them.  It was a great visit and the Spirit was so strong as we invited them back.  The husband works every Sunday, so that will be a bit of a challenge, but he has such a strong testimony and actually served a mission.


This last week I was asked to give a training on bearing our testimonies.  I prayed that the Spirit would be there and work through me that we all could be more effective representatives of Jesus Christ and help people come closer to him through our testimonies.  The Lord in his great mercy blessed me to be able to do this.  The Spirit was so strong and the Love that was in that room was overwhelming.  We then felt impressed to have a testimony sharing meeting which was truly beautiful.  I love my district so much and am so grateful for each and every one of them.
After this we went home and I crashed and took a nap, since Elder Freeman got me sick and I had nothing left to give.  After my nap, we went back out again.  It is amazing to me how strong Spiritual experiences just zap the energy right out of you.


Saturday I spent a lot of time prepping for a talk for Sunday.  We were given the opportunity to have a missionary sacrament.   Sister Hileman and I were asked to speak and we all sang The Spirit of God.  It was an amazing experience.  Anyway, I was trying to prep all day and couldn't seem to get anything.  I remember James 1:5 come to mind and also D&C 6:8 as well. So, I went to my knees and asked the Lord what he would have me speak on, expressing all my desires and reasons behind my asking for guidance.  After kneeling and pondering what the Lord wanted to tell me, I received the prompting to focus on the Atonement and missionary work.  To read Mosiah 4:11 and some other scriptures and that it would be given me what to say in that moment.  It was a wonderful spiritual experience and then I received a warning from the Lord that Satan would try to get me frustrated that day and to stay faithful and keep busy.  I know that with all my heart this was an answer to my prayers because a lot of dumb little things came up that day that Satan was trying his hardest to get me frustrated.  But, because of the heads up I was able to stay focused and busy.  It truly is amazing how the Lord is aware of us and gives us opportunities to grow like that.  We went out and invited a lot of people to church the next day.  We came back around 8ish and I tried prepping again with not avail, so I just decided to prep scriptures. I still had nothing though and normally I would be freaking out, but the Lord was blessing me with his grace and love.  The next morning I woke up and poured my heart out to the Lord again and he comforted my soul and so I moved forward.  There were doubts that came to my mind as we went to church, but I kept remembering my experience and moving forward pushing those doubts out.  Sacrament was such a beautiful meeting.  Sister Hileman went first and did a fantastic job speaking about grace and miracles, and then I was up. I had no idea what to say but the Lord granted me to say what was needed to be heard.  After, we sang our Hymn and it was a very moving experience for everyone.  Later that night we had dinner at a member's home whose son and his wife are less actives and we had a delicous meal and sang a lot with them and developed our relationships with them a lot.  We had a beautiful lesson about Christ loving his sheep and how he goes and looks for those who wander off to bring them back.  The Spirit that was present was so strong and that led them to ask for a blessing.  They asked me to give the blessing of comfort, and it was such a moving experience for me.  As I placed my hands on her head, they were no longer mine.  The words that came out of my mouth were not mine.  There was an overwhelming presence in that room and later words came out of my mouth that introduced them.  None of us saw them, but Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ's presences were in that room letting this daughter of their's know that she was loved.  When these words left my mouth the Spirit confirmed them and the room was enveloped in such a sweet, loving Spirit.

Brothers and Sister, I know with all my heart and soul that we are sons and daughters of a loving Heavenly Father and that he is aware of each and everyone of us. I know and bear my solemn witness that Jesus is the Christ, the Redeemer of the World and He loves us more than we can ever come close to comprehend.  He shed His precious blood for each and every one of us, being spit on, mocked and gave his life willingly for our sakes.  I know that He lives for I have felt his presence so many times in my life.  I know that as we turn to him in sincere prayer and express all of our desires to him that he will bless us with the things that we stand in need of.  I know of these things for myself and what joy, what peace and what gratitude I have that God in His great goodness, His great love and mercy to me has made these things known to me as a result of my desire to find out for myself.

I know that all men and women can come to know what I have come to know and even more as they turn to the Lord and truly, truly come to know Him more than they did before and to continually strive to know Him better.

I urge all of you to seek for ways to do just this, come to know your Savior and Redeemer.  Come to know what love and great blessings He has in store for you.  A great way to start is by reading the Book of Mormon which is another testament of Jesus Christ, which truly does teach us how we can come to know Him.  I know these things are true and I leave you with my solemn witness, in the sacred name, of Jesus Christ, amen.

Mon 9/9/2013 9:12 AM

This past week has been really good.  There has been a ton of planning involved, serving and some teaching.  It is truly a great blessing to see the Lords hand in His work and to be able to receive inspiration concerning the things that we need to do in this area to get the work moving.

 

We have been in daily contact with the missionaries in our ward, and since we have been working so smoothly with each other things are going well and the work is going great!

 

Last night was a great lesson.  We had Hermano Alfredo and the other Elders come with us (an awesome member) and we ate dinner with La familia Cruz.  The mother is active but all her kids are inactive/less active.   We only had about 10-15 min to prep before hand at Hermano Alfredos house, but it went really well.  Elder Freeman and I shared a couple of scriptures and explained them. Then I felt prompted to go share part of my conversion story, why we are here and a scripture in 3 Nephi 9:13-14.  I love this scripture so much because it is Christ inviting those who once came unto him, but turned away, to come back.  The Spirit was there as we explained this and we were able to get their attention.  It was a wonderful experience, for which I am glad for. I hope that they will continue pondering the words we spake through the Holy Ghost and that as we continue to work with them we will be able to bring them back.

On Sunday we taught the Young Men on how to resist temptation and what it truly means to be a Son of God.  It was a great experience and amazing to see how  the Spirit touched their hearts. I love working with the youth, and am so grateful that I can relate to them, and because of my experiences I can better help them.  We also had a young man help us teach who isn't even a member of the church.  The only reason is because his Father won't allow him until he is 18.  He did really well and has a great testimony already.

Today I was reading in 2 Nephi chapter 33.  It is such a beautiful chapter.  There is too much to share that I loved, but one verse really stood out to me and goes hand in hand with why I am here.  It is verse 6 and it says:
 6 I glory in plainness; I glory in truth; I glory in my Jesus, for he hath redeemed my soul from hell.

Brothers and Sisters I know that with all my heart and soul that Jesus Christ is the light and life of the world and that he truly is truth.  I have tasted of His love and that is why I am here.  For he hath redeemed my soul from hell and as Nephi, I will rejoice in my Lord and glory in Christ for he truly does live, and because he lives there is hope.

 

I invite all of you to turn to Christ and seek to come to know him as I have, for it is the greatest blessing in my life.  I leave you all with my love and this testimony, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

 

Tue 9/3/2013 1:44 PM

The new area is pretty nice!  We have a huge apartment and there are a total of 6 Elders living there.  We have a balcony which is nice, so we get a nice breeze.

Pretty much everyone in Chelsea speaks Spanish.  We walk and ride the bus everywhere.  My companion is Elder Sompi and we have 4 other missionaries working with us in our ward.  We have 2 more Elders and 2 Sisters.  All of them are awesome!

There is a whole lot of work to be done, that we need to get started. We are in Revere 1st Ward and we had 135 people last Sunday attend.  A little bit bigger than the branch down in CT.

On monday we were able to go to the Temple, which was amazing. There were so many missionaries there and I got to see some of the members as well from Bridgeport that came up.  We got there at 7:15 am and left at 1:30.  It was packed!

We were allowed to go to the Redsox game with permission from Pres. Packard, but we didn't because we didn't have time and weren't sure we wanted to spend $30, so we went to the Cambridge stake center (which is a beautiful building and one of the most expensive).  There were Brazilian members there who were having a BBQ.  They invited us for lunch and there was a party in there with musical chairs and everything.  It was fun and we then went into Boston to Quincy Market and that was a very interesting and fun place.  There are a lot of things to do here since we are so close to everything, so I am looking forward to my new area.

There is a man named Dan who the Elders met on the street.  He come up to them and wanted them to meet his mom in a nursing home.  He is a very nice man and doesn't really want anything to do with the church, but we are really good friends with him.  We went Sunday night to see his mom with him.  It was really hard to walk in there because of how sad it is, but it was a beautiful experience. She wasn't in the best of moods and so we ended up singing a song, "Families Can Be Together Forever."  The Spirit that was there was amazing and she just lit up after that.  It was really a great visit and she kept talking about how bright we were, like there was a light coming from us.  She expressed how she was scared and so we expressed our love for her and talked a little bit about the Plan of Salvation since she also said she never got to know the purpose of life.  It was a great visit, but so hard to see how the whole situation was affecting Dan.

How blessed we are to know the answers to these questions that everyone asks themselves at one point in their lives, which is the reason why we NEED to share these wonderful things with others. 

I would encourage all of you to ponder for a few moments exactly how coming to the knowledge of these things has blessed your life and affected how you have handled situations differently as a result.  Wouldn't you want others to feel that same peace that you have felt; that same joy?  Can you imagine having to go through life in the dark not knowing why we are here, where we came from and the fear that people have about death because it is the unknown.   We do not have to be in the dark and I know that Heavenly Father has provided us a way to have a light in this life; that light is Jesus Christ and his gospel.  Everyone can have the peace and guidance from having this light in their lives if they but chose to follow it.  We as members who have come to know this truth and have had this light have the responsibility to share it with others.

In Luke 15:4-6 we can learn one of the best ways to really be that light.

4  What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine ^ain the wilderness, and go after that which is ^blost, until he find it?

5  And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing.

6  And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost.

Every Sunday we go to church and partake of the sacrament and then go to our classes learning more and more about our Savior, but how often during church are we truly striving to become more like him?  Are we having too great of a time focusing on ourselves and those who are at church and not giving a second thought to those who aren't there?  Brothers and Sisters I hope with all my heart we can apply this parable to our lives and start looking for those who are not at church and making it a priority to stop by and see how they are doing.  To let them feel that they are loved and that they are needed, for truly they are loved and needed.  Just as The Good Shepherd goes out to find that sheep that is lost, so should we.

 

We should all ponder about how going to church each Sunday blesses our lives and why we would want others to feel that same way.   We need to ask ourselves, "who is not here today that should be," and then, "who is not here because I didn't invite them?"  Just as Christ invites all people to come unto him, so must we.  I know that as we invite people to come closer to Jesus Christ their lives will be blessed and so will ours.  There are so many blessings waiting for those who let their light shine forth.  I urge you to be that light to others, that they may come to know what you have.

 

I know that this church is true.  That it is truly Christ's church restored on the earth today and that there are many people who are looking for the truth, but do not know where to find it.  I know that Christ is our Redeemer and is that Light for all men.  I know that because He lives He will always be that light that can never diminish, and how great this knowledge is; I know that my redeemer lives.  I say these things in the sacred name of Jesus Christ, amen.