You've gotta love giant tests from God because this week has just been one giant test. We baptized last week and we're going to baptize again in two weeks so I feel like Satan is really working hard on us so we'll stop having so much success. Up until now the people here in Peñasco have been really friendly and accepting , but all of a sudden this week we keep getting rejected by everyone. It's hard because I've never worked harder or been more obedient in my mission. But it's okay because attitude is everything. Instead of seeing it as rejection, I try to see it as an opportunity to prove my commitment to the Lord. When people reject me I try not to take offense. I just smile, thank them for their time, and testify. I smile because it make ME feel happier. Happiness is a choice, not a random event. On more difficult days (and there are plenty of those) I try to smile more. I love trying to see the opportunities in every challenge rather than seeing the challenges in every opportunity. God sends us these trials because he loves and trusts us. You've gotta love giant tests from God.
So, this was a really good week for a couple of reasons but the biggest one was that we baptized:) Dulce and her two kids Javier and Mitchell were finally able to enter into the waters of baptism. The service went great. Me and my comp sang a fun arrangement with the uke of "When I am Baptized". Also, President Robinson was able to attend the baptism because he gave us interviews that day. He's such an amazing leader and our mission has changed a lot with him. After the baptism Dulce invited us over and she made us pazole and we watched Meet the Mormons. (Thanks for sending mom!) Also, they're going to do baptisms in the temple the 5th of December and we're going to go with them:) We should also have a few more baptisms before the end of this transfer so I can't complain right now:)
A while ago I read a talk called "The Fourth Missionary". Well last week I reread it and I'd like to share a little bit of it with you. There are four types of missionary's (and people). The first missionary is disobedient and goes home early. The second missionary is disobedient but he some how finishes his mission but it doesn't benefit home or the people he serves and he lives his whole life with regret. The third missionary is obedient and hardworking but he withholds his heart. He does what the Lord wants, but he wants to do what he wants to do. Many people benefit from his service but he does not benefit personally from it. He is not changed by his mission. The fourth missionary, like the third missionary, works hard and is obedient, but unlike the third missionary, he gives himself. He gives his will to the Lord. He surrenders all of his heart and in his head he lets go of what he wants to do. He wants to do the Lord's will .C.S. Lewis said “Give me all of you!!! I don’t want so much of your time, so much of your talents and money, and so much of your work. I want YOU!!! ALL OF YOU!! I have not come to torment or frustrate the natural man or woman, but to KILL IT! No half measures will do. I don’t want to only prune a branch here and a branch there; rather I want the whole tree out! Hand it over to me, the whole outfit, all of your desires, all of your wants and wishes and dreams. Turn them ALL over to me, give yourself to me and I will make of you a new self---in my image. Give me yourself and in exchange I will give you Myself. My will, shall become your will. My heart, shall become your heart.” The fourth missionary does great good for those he serves and he also benefits personally from his service. He is changed. Working by myself I will create an ordinary man, but by surrendering myself to him, he will create a God. It sounds hard, giving everything up to him, but it is in the end easier. At the beginning of my mission I was a hardcore third missionary. I had my own desires and thought a lot about how great it would be once I'm home. But through surrendering and consecrating myself to the Lord, I've been able to leave those desires behind. I love this work. I invite everyone of you to take a look at yourself and decide which missionary you are and make some changes in your life if necessary. It will make all the difference. I love you!!! Time is going way way way too fast. I keep losing track of time so much. This week we got some new people in the zone. 2 sisters from my district are training. In the zone now we have 3 people from Bolivia, 1 from Guatemala, 1 from Peru, 4 from Mexico, and 3 from the States. Its so fun being able to meet such a diverse group of people. Especially here in Peñasco. Its a port so we get people from all over. Especially people that have been deported.
Anyway. On Wednesday and Thursday I went to Hermosillo to renew my visa. It was fun because I got to see a bunch of old friends from the MTC. We had a great time talking about old memories. I cant imagine what its going to be like after the mission. This week was pretty hard. But God saw our sacrifice and blessed us with an awesome sacrament meeting. We had a lot of investigators in church and he blessed with 2 more super chosen investigators. I realized that I´ve been really prideful and I´ve been focusing too much on my on power and efforts and I haven´t been allowing the Lord to work in my hue. I love the CS Lewis quote "Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.” I´m really trying to humble myself and allow the Savior to make me into the person that he wants me to be. It may be painful a vices and I may not understand what he´s doing to me but it will make me better in the end. I love you!!! This is a letter from Elder Anderson to Elder Bill Wakley. He is a young man from our ward that is going to the Hermosillo Mission.
It's impossible to share everything that I've learned in my mission in one little letter so I'm only going to share one principle that has helped me. DyC 18:15 "And if it so be that you should labor all your days in crying repentance unto this people, and bring, save it be one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father!". I contend that the “one soul” is you. Imagine the insanity of sending 19 to 21 year old young people all over the world to be the ambassadors of something as critical as the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. Frankly, it sounds crazy. But factor in a couple of things. Do most missionaries enter the mission field converted? I can only speak for me. I wasn’t. I had good feelings about the church, seminary, Joseph Smith, the Gospel, etc., but converted? Not to the degree the Lord desires. That is the beauty of the mission experience, the Lord entrusts us to dispense his critically important message, knowing full well that in the process of delivering that message an unusual process occurs where the teacher of the message and the hearer of the message are both becoming converted AT THE SAME TIME. That is why mission success CAN ONLY HAVE ONE GUAGE, YOUR PERSONAL CONVERSION. This only comes from one attitude, that of absolute obedience. Baptisms happen or don’t happen. Teaching opportunities can happen or don’t happen. The blessings of the converted missionary last far beyond the mission experience. Learn this critical principle, all you need to do for 2 years is make sure that nothing but the truth comes out of your mouth to every single person you can possibly speak to (in golfing terms, just swing). That is what is so incredible about missionary work, the closer you bring others to Christ, the closer you get to Christ yourself. I love this work and I know that you are going to be an incredieble missionary Bill. I'm excited to have you here in the mission. But get ready because it's HOT. Partyly because I'm here but also because the Lord only sends his strongest missionarys to this mission. Love ya and I'll see you soon!!! Today is transfer day!! Both me and my companion are staying here which is good because we have a few baptisms coming up. I´d like to give a shoutout to my sister Courtney. She´s 14 today!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! Dang girl your old. I hope all your dreams come true on this magical day.
So this has been a week of lessons learned. To start, I ponderized 2 Cor 12:10 "Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ´s sake: for when I am weak, then I am strong." I believe that when we ponderize a scripture God puts a couple of experiences in our week to make sure we really learn to apply the scripture. So I guess by picking this scripture I was setting myself up for a week of trials. This week I feel like we had to work extra hard to get results. It felt like everyone that we contacted straight up regected us and all of our appointments fell through. So I started to get quite frustrated. I felt like I´ve been very obedient and doing al the things that the Lord has asked me to do. So why weren´t the blessings coming?? Well one night I had a nice long prayer with the Lord and this is what he told me "The mission experience is to do what you are told, when you are told, to go where you are asked, and know that the blessing comes from enduring what I ask you. THIS IS NOT ABOUT YOU; it is about opening you mouth at all times in all places. Doing my will without thought to the end result or consequence... that is what a mission is." Thanks to this experience, I can now truly say that I take pleasure in infirmities, reproaches, ncessities, persecutions, and distresses for Christ´s sake: for when I am weak, then I am STRONG. When I have tough days, I feel the love of the Savior MORE, because it shows me that he trusts me. It´s an oppurtunity to show commitment to the Lord. I love my Savior. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen. -"Everything you´ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear." -- -Elder Anderson This was a really good week. I feel like I say that a lot but it's true. I'm loving the mission and every week is a great week.
In the beginning of the week I was on exchanges with Elder Heredia. His back has been hurting him so we went to the doctor. They gave him some shots in is back but after that they put us in a pressure chamber. It's this submarine looking capsule that fits like four people. They put us in and put some oxygen masks on us and gave us gum to chew so our hears would pop. They locked us is and turned the pressure up. Our ears popped for like 5 minutes straight. We were in there for an hour and it was super cool:) On Friday I went on exchanges with Elder Bernal. He's a super good missionary and he helped me a lot. We had a really cool lesson with a woman named Imelda. She had already heard the missionary's before but we hadn't been able to find her up until now. She told us that the missionary's taught her for a couple of weeks but after that she had to go to Mexicali for a brain surgery. She was in the hospital for about a month and she would read the Book of Mormon everyday while she was there. After the surgery she didn't recognize anyone except for the missionary's. She's super cool and wants to get baptized. We challenged her for the 21st of November and she started crying because that's her daughters birthday. Dulce and her two kids are also progressing really well. They've come to church the last 3 Sundays in a row and they're excited for their baptism. This week I ponderized Matt 20:26-27 "Whosoever shall be great among you, let him be your minister; And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant". Something I'm working on right now is humility. I love the C.S Lewis quote "A proud man cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you're looking down, you can't see something that's above you". Let's all try to be a little more humble. I love you!!! One word to sum up this week, exhausted. I'm tired. I feel like I've hit a "mid mission crisis". I still love being a missionary and we're working like crazy but I'm tired ALL the time. I'm even eating super healthy. But that's okay. I'd rather be tired at the end of a successful day than bored!!
The highlight of this week was that we've been teaching a single mom named Dulce. She has two kids named Genesis and Javier. Genesis has 8 years and Javier has 13. We had only been teaching Dulce and her daughter because Dulce said that her son was really closed to God and stuff. But this week we invited him to listen and we taught them the plan of salvation and he really liked it. All three of them accepted a baptismal date and they came to church this Sunday!! I have already seen a change in Dulce but especially in her son Javier. By the way, in Arizona this week it was fall break so in church we had about 200 gringos join us. Also today a gringo family invited us to a restaurant with them. It was super cool. Actually, they used to live in Centerville.... on 400 south..... in our ward!!!! They know the Shupes. They're the Pay family. Anyway, in church a little American girl got up and bore her testimony in English and she said "I know that God..." and she sat thinking for a couple minutes and then she said "I know that God is good". I really liked that. I wasn't exactly the best Sunday school student, and I hardly went to seminary so I don't know a whole lot of doctrine. But I do know that God is good. I know that he loves us and wants whats best for us. This week I ponderized the scripture "But now, O Lord, thou art our Father; we are the clay, and thou our Potter; and we all are the work of thy hand". Isaiah 64:8. If we live a Christ centered life, God can take us and make us into works of art that we never dreamed possible. The future is as bright as your faith. Today is the day, go out and get it. So this week was general conference!!!! I loved it!! It was super good. It was sad to see how weak President Thomas S. Monson is looking. The best part was that we had a few investigators come so that was super cool. We also had a ward party on Friday. It was for Mexico's Independence Day. We sang a little song as missionaries. It was a lot of fun!
Man there's a lot of things that I'm trying to work on personally as a missionary right now. But I think the biggest thing that I'm working on is consecrating myself to the Lord. All of my heart, might, mind, and strength. This is a hard area and we have to work twice as hard everyday. It has been really fun but also exhausting. We crawl into the house everyday. The la Familia Ruelas Cardenas called me last night to say hi and it helped me a ton!! It was so good to hear from them and hear that they're doing okay!! That's a huge motivation, seeing the difference that I can make in other peoples lives. I love my mission and I'm sad because of how fast it's going!!! I love you!!! Elder Anderson So this week was full of ups and downs. Me and my comp are getting a better grip on the area. But we still hardly know any of the members. But we're talking with EVERYONE!!! We're contacting like crazy and it's really fun because we talk with a lot of funny people. It's also sad because we talk with a lot of people that were deported from the states and now they're stuck here with no job, house, or family. The whole situation with the border is really ugly. But it's amazing that even in a sad situation these people can be so happy!!! Humility has been a huge lesson that I've had to learn here on the mission. Especially with my new comp. He's about a foot shorter than me and barely weighs over 100. Nobody believes that he's a missionary because he looks like a deacon. But let me be the first to tell you that he is the hardest working comp that I have ever been with. He's an amazing example of silent strength. We're getting along great and we're going to have a lot of success together! Also, my branch is almost pure gringos!!! They're all on vacation here in Pencasco, so almost every Sunday our branch is full of gringos. They all come and talk to me because I'm the only gringo missionary here. "So where are you from?" "Utah? Oh how cool, so are we...." And speaking English is super hard and I don't like how it sounds. I'm not going to like speaking English when coming home.... General Conference is this weekend!!! A year ago I was in the MTC singing... crazy. I hope you all watch it and learn something new!! Before the mission I never really listened to general conference, but here in the mission it's like a giant party for us missionaries!!! I love you all!!! I don't want to pay for haircuts so I asked some guy to cut my hair and then we taught him a lesson:) We had a zone activity today. We played volleyball with water balloons. We were taking the group picture and I got a bucket of water. Right before we took the pic I splashed the water on everyone. That's why everyone is surprised and I'm all chill:) I had the awesome opportunity to baptize the investigator of the misioneras. It was a really cool spiritual experience In our area we have a less active member named Flavio and he has a restaurant on the ocean and he offered to give us all our food free so.... we couldn't resist going today:) I drank about 4 Pina Coladas and had some awesome fish tacos:) my mission is so tough.....
No really!! It's tough!! Okay,
So I'm in Puerto Peñasco now. It's a cool little resort town on the tip of the sea of Cortez. The streets are pure sand.... I'm mean there are a couple of paved roads, but pretty much all of my area is sand. Also, we have bikes here in Peñasco so it's really hard biking around in the sand. But, this area has a lot of potencial. We are opening the area so we spent the week getting to know the area and the members. My companion is Elder Rosales. He's from Peru, he has 6 months in the mission, and he's 19. He is very likely the smallest Elder in the mission. But he's a very hard worker and we've had a lot of success together and we're going to continue having success. I learned a good lesson this week. We had a visit from a 70 Elder Pieper. He helped us with our teaching methods a little and I realized that I had gotten into a few bad habits in my teaching. We had a lesson with a woman named Dulce and during the lesson I really focused on teaching according to the needs of her and more than anything having a real love for her. We had a great lesson that ended with her in tears. I love having this opportunity to be a representative of the Lord Jesus Christ. There truly is power in our calling. I love you all!!! |
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