Week 98 - Palmdale

 

This week has been a pretty good week. Except that on Monday, I threw a volleyball to Elder Vedia, and broke his finger. Totally 45 degree angle sideways. On Monday night we were visiting some people in a section called Casa Verde, and the other elders in the district called, saying that they had a referral for us. We went by, and it was in a member's home with an investigator we had talked to the week before. It turns out the member decided to invite our investigator to a dinner at her home, and to bring us with her. Our investigator has a son with autism, so he's not always on his best behavior.

We shared a scripture about charity. It's something that I've been studying a lot about recently. In Moroni 7:47-48, it explains charity as the pure love of Christ. I took that before to mean that Charity is the definition of Christ's love, which is true. But I learned something more. I always thought we had to gain this love, somehow have that love, and it's all our own. It says, though, that charity is Christ's pure love, not mine. Sometimes it can be hard to love some others, but as verse 48 says, we have to ask our Father that He fill us with Christ's love with all the energy of our heart.

We taught one of our investigators the word of wisdom last week, and at first, she said she would be unable to go cold turkey. She said just one drink every once in a while wouldn't hurt. But we read Alma 47:11-18 and talked about how even lowering just a little bit can have bad consequences. She then fully committed to live it. She was really grateful! However this week, we came by and she explained her whole personal dilemma, of how her husband doesn't want her to go to church and literally beats her when she does. She said she couldn't keep going, progressing because she was done. She had been beaten and abused most of her life, and she's just so close. If she just makes the Covenants with God, all will be well.

We explained about the Atonement. I realize that often we go into 2 Nephi 2 whenever people have questions about why we have opposition, but I have seen that that chapter is for the ones who know about the blessings of life and struggles. There are those who just want to know if it's all worth it, or what God does during their struggles and oppositions. For me, Mosiah 24 explains it best.

Anyway, we were going tracting, and there was a door we saw a car trunk open, so we knocked the door. A black woman answered and we said "HI. We're missionaries from the church of Jesus Christ. She answered," oh, ok. Come on in!" We came in, shared a message, and she said, "My name is Chok-o-lat-ay, but you can call me chocolate". She was a really cool referral for English elders, but it turns out that her son had been invited a few weeks earlier to go to church by a member, and went. Great miracles happen.

On Thursday we gave a blessing to a member, and also had Zone Conference. It was a good conference. Since I'm extending, all the missionaries I would have gone home with bore their testimonies. It was weird and sad to see. But I am glad to have a little extra time here. I also finished the Book of Mormón in Spanish! It was an eye opener. We decided that we would have a meeting with bishop to discuss some plans, so we put our presentation together Friday, and then on Saturday we presented it to bishop, and then after Stake conference we all got blessings from him and the Elder's Quorum President. Hno Aguirre, the EQP, is amazing. A great man.

The notes I received from Stake conference are these:

Jesus ministered by letting them know the Atonement is real. Feel and see and know.
Tithing is in place of consecration today. Concecration is the higher law.
Now we're at the higher law of ministering. We are being asked to live a higher law.
Ministering is an attribute of Christ.
As he focused on helping those around him on the hill, his own hill disappeared*
**Higher laws allow more agency, and more direction from and freedom to follow the Spirit. It only works by turning outward. **

It shouldn't be a commandment, but just nature.

Week 97 - Palmdale

 

This week has been a pretty good week. Except that on Monday, I threw a volleyball to Elder Vedia, and broke his finger. Totally 45 degree angle sideways. On Monday night we were visiting some people in a section called Casa Verde, and the other elders in the district called, saying that they had a referral for us. We went by, and it was in a member's home with an investigator we had talked to the week before. It turns out the member decided to invite our investigator to a dinner at her home, and to bring us with her. Our investigator has a son with autism, so he's not always on his best behavior.

We shared a scripture about charity. It's something that I've been studying a lot about recently. In Moroni 7:47-48, it explains charity as the pure love of Christ. I took that before to mean that Charity is the definition of Christ's love, which is true. But I learned something more. I always thought we had to gain this love, somehow have that love, and it's all our own. It says, though, that charity is Christ's pure love, not mine. Sometimes it can be hard to love some others, but as verse 48 says, we have to ask our Father that He fill us with Christ's love with all the energy of our heart.

We taught one of our investigators the word of wisdom last week, and at first, she said she would be unable to go cold turkey. She said just one drink every once in a while wouldn't hurt. But we read Alma 47:11-18 and talked about how even lowering just a little bit can have bad consequences. She then fully committed to live it. She was really grateful! However this week, we came by and she explained her whole personal dilemma, of how her husband doesn't want her to go to church and literally beats her when she does. She said she couldn't keep going, progressing because she was done. She had been beaten and abused most of her life, and she's just so close. If she just makes the Covenants with God, all will be well.

We explained about the Atonement. I realize that often we go into 2 Nephi 2 whenever people have questions about why we have opposition, but I have seen that that chapter is for the ones who know about the blessings of life and struggles. There are those who just want to know if it's all worth it, or what God does during their struggles and oppositions. For me, Mosiah 24 explains it best.

Anyway, we were going tracting, and there was a door we saw a car trunk open, so we knocked the door. A black woman answered and we said "HI. We're missionaries from the church of Jesus Christ. She answered," oh, ok. Come on in!" We came in, shared a message, and she said, "My name is Chok-o-lat-ay, but you can call me chocolate". She was a really cool referral for English elders, but it turns out that her son had been invited a few weeks earlier to go to church by a member, and went. Great miracles happen.

On Thursday we gave a blessing to a member, and also had Zone Conference. It was a good conference. Since I'm extending, all the missionaries I would have gone home with bore their testimonies. It was weird and sad to see. But I am glad to have a little extra time here. I also finished the Book of Mormón in Spanish! It was an eye opener. We decided that we would have a meeting with bishop to discuss some plans, so we put our presentation together Friday, and then on Saturday we presented it to bishop, and then after Stake conference we all got blessings from him and the Elder's Quorum President. Hno Aguirre, the EQP, is amazing. A great man.

The notes I received from Stake conference are these:

Jesus ministered by letting them know the Atonement is real. Feel and see and know.
Tithing is in place of consecration today. Concecration is the higher law.
Now we're at the higher law of ministering. We are being asked to live a higher law.
Ministering is an attribute of Christ.
As he focused on helping those around him on the hill, his own hill disappeared*
**Higher laws allow more agency, and more direction from and freedom to follow the Spirit. It only works by turning outward. **

It shouldn't be a commandment, but just nature.

Week 96 - Palmdale

 

Hello everyone. This week was a great one, full of growing experiences and miracles. We taught the Restoration to Mirna, and she liked it a lot. We invited her to read. Something we learn from it though, was the following: On Sunday we went to Israel. His mother, Victoria, is the recent convert who recently went to the temple with us, and she is an amazing member present. Israel is paralyzed from the neck down, but we asked our mission president, and he said we should do anything possible to get anyone on the path. We taught the Restoration extremely clearly, going through each step. We asked him "If God's church was on the earth, would you follow it?". He said yes. We then invited him to be baptized. He said yes again. We also talked about Temples, and his mom testified so powerfully of them. It was a great experience.
It was a good week overall. We also went on exchanges, and Elder Vedia and I visited Irma, and she said during the lesson that God had no gender, and was just love. But we testified of the nature of God, and she said "how do you know?"
We just said that it was revealed by a prophet, and she was just like "OK."
Elder Vedia is a great elder. We got a lot of work done.
This was what we talked about during District Meeting:
We want to teach by the Spirit. How? By making sure they are given full and complete agency.
The Spirit of the Lord is the Spirit of Freedom. We must bring the Spirit into lessons. Make them want to act by their own free will and choice. How? Through pure doctrine. Sometimes we hide doctrine about Joseph Smith or whatever it might be. Being bold is declaring doctrine, not telling someone they're wrong.
If we follow the Spirit, we do not hold them on a leash, we trust Heavenly Father, since it's by faith that things are done.
Do we trust God's answers will come to them as they act on the knowledge they receive?
As they act for themselves, they will come by choice to repentance. Teach pure doctrine that will make them choose to act on the truth. They may not know for sure, but the truth, even if they don't know it's truth yet, will cause them to at least know it is good, and to ask God.
Until they ask God, they cannot know of Spiritual truths. Sometimes we scare the Spirit away without knowing.
Just let them act. God works little by little. Don't complain that everyone has agency. That's the only way the truth comes. Just teach do they want to use their agency to know more directly from God, not us.
I love you all.
Elder Sant

I'm sorry I don't have a lot of pictures, but here you go.

Week 95 - Palmdale

 

 This was a good week. On Tuesday we went to the temple with hna Victoria. It was an amazing experience. She just loved all of it, and when she found out that she had to wait a year before participating in other Covenants there, she got pretty sad. She wanted everything and she wanted it now, like a kid in a candy store. There was a strong Spirit as she performed baptisms for her mother and for other people who needed the work done there.
After going to the temple, since it's in the middle of Los Angeles, we went to a pretty famous shawarma restaurant. It was amazing. It was a good day overall.
We visited Irma, and she is super excited for her baptism. The Lord was able to show us the things that we would have to teach to help Israel, a paralyzed man, to get baptized. We're first going to teach him, and then see where he's at. He can use his chest up and his brain works completely fine. We had exchanges, and I went with an elder who wasn't very talkative, where though being in his area, I had to do a lot of the teaching. But we taught a pretty good lesson of the Restoration. We used 2 Nephi 3:24 to explain how God would call another prophet in the last days, and then Ether 4:13-14 about how God has so much to reveal to us, but we just often don't have faith.
There was a day in the week where we didn't feel like doing anything, but we decided to go and tract in an area. We went by one person, but she wasn't home, went by another, and she wasn't either. Went by many other people, and none were home. We were already discouraged, and nothing was happening, so we decided to go by the first person we tried by one more time. We knocked on the door and she answered and we were able to help her out. It was great. This ties in with the district meeting topic.
We taught enduring to the end. Summarized, here's what we talked about.
Jesús Christ endured to the end. It's the VERY LEAST He expects of us. Think about this. He suffered SO MUCH in Gethsemane, still honoring and loving His Father. Then betrayed by Judas. Still held on tight. Beaten in the house of His friends. Tightens His grip. Was crucified. While crucified, He could free Himself, but He held tight. The Spirit left Him, He did not let go. He wouldn't lose trust in Heavenly Father. He endured from all eternity and more, even beyond. Immortality is a free gift, but exaltation is only possible by enduring. Arise from the dust and do as He commands. As you hold to Him, He will hold to you. That is the promise. You want a blessing, find the commandments in connection with it and hold tight in faith. Just endure to the end despite all that impedes you. Be a man, the one He wants. And from 1 Nephi 3:15.
Too often we want to let go too early, but we will not go back until we've accomplished what the Lord commanded.
I love you all.
- Élder Sant