Because I Have Been Given Much

Hola! This email will be longer than normal because I pretty much just condensed my journal for the full week. There were some ups and downs this week, but I learned so much and I’m really happy here on the mission and in the MTC.

Saturday the 11th, 

This was my first P-day, after doing laundry and emailing, me and Elder Larsen got ready to go to the Temple. Before the temple, we did some personal study. I was reading in the Book of Helaman and I was really impressed by the prophet Nephi. After numerous miracles and bearing strong testimony, the people would still not hearken to his words and he felt alone. But then he heard a voice from the Spirit to go back out and preach repentance once again. Nephi is just one of many great examples of Missionary work in the Book of Mormon. It was just what I needed to hear in that moment. The temple session we were in was packed, and it was great to be among so many saints. A lot of the elders in my zone volunteered in the temple laundry room after, and it was a blessing to serve.

Sunday the 12th, 

This whole weekend I had the hymn, “Because I Have Been Given Much” stuck in my head. And it’s a great motivation for me because I have been so blessed by the Lord leading up to this point in my life, and now I too must give. I really enjoyed this Sunday because we just had a lot of time to ponder and reflect. The first few days of classes were a lot to take in at once, so it was nice to ponder about the Gospel and Missionary Work. That night at the devotional, there was a beautiful music arrangement, it was “Come thou fount of every blessing” and “If you could hie to Kolob.” The Spirit was so strong. We also watched the Character of Christ devotional that was given by Elder David A Bednar a few years back. It was life changing and it really just gave me the desire to forget myself and turn outward to serve others as Christ would.

Monday the 13th,

We had a service opportunity in the morning. We pretty much were just in charge of cleaning parts of one of the other Residences. Just some vacuuming, sweeping, taking out the trash, and cleaning sinks. Exercise time usually is in between our two classes, so it’s nice to play some volleyball or soccer to take away from some of the stress. Its getting colder so a lot of us elders are trying to take advantage of using the outdoor field. I’m loving soccer because I was playing a lot of soccer this fall at school, so it’s nice to see that work pay off hahah I’m averaging 2 goals a game so far

Tuesday the 14th,

The other two elders in our room, Elder Nelson and Elder Edge are some funny guys. Elder Nelson is going to Riverside as well and he has some of the best one-liners, so I started to keep a list of his quotes. Elder Edge is going to Fort Worth on his mission, so we talk about Texas quite a bit. That night, Elder Parrella, a new member of the quorum of the seventy, gave a devotional. He talked a lot about faith and hope. With faith, we are able to do miracles according to the Lord’s will. Hope will help us conquer discouragement.

Wednesday the 15th,

We had been teaching our investigator, Patricio, all week, and this was our fourth lesson with him. Elder Larsen and I had the plan of teaching the whole plan of Salvation, but the Spirit lead us to 2 Nephi 2:25-27. These verses really stuck with Patricio, and we spent a lot of time listening to Patricio’s concerns and bore testimony about the Atonement, repentance, the Book of Mormon and eternal families among others. As I was bearing testimony, I felt the gift of tongues. It gives me comfort to know that the Spirit is the ultimate teacher whenever we preach the gospel.

Thursday the 16th,

Up to this point, the week had been pretty great. As the day went on, I honestly just didn’t feel that patient. It’s hard to have the spirit with us if we are lacking patience and charity. It was just one of those days. Right before we were going to go in for our last lesson with Patricio, I wanted to read a little bit out of the Book of Mormon. It got me back in the right state of mind, and we were able to teach a 40 minute lesson, which went really well. Through this whole experience with Patricio, we learned the importance of testifying with the Spirit, extending commitments, and following up in lessons. I probably should’ve mentioned that Patricio was just a Returned Missionary who was just acting as an investigator, but we still were able to gain some confidence.

Friday the 17th,

I got my package sent to me from home with a lot more blister band aids. I got some pretty bad blisters the first few days from trying to break in some new shoes, and I was running out of moleskin, so this was perfect timing. All in all, today was a great day. We found out who our TRC (investigator) is for the next 3 weeks. Her name is Niky, and we will start teaching her next Wednesday. At the end of the day, Elder Larsen and I taught a 10 minute lesson on the Restoration to another companionship, and it went really well. It was really cold today in Provo, so I brought out the winter jacket for a little bit, and I think we even got a few snowflakes later that night. When I compare this day and the day before, I was a lot happier today because I was remembering to pray more, love more, and serve others more.

Ran into The Winston Farley (teammate on BYU Lax - he volunteers/works at MTC)

My companion (Elder Larsen) and me after the Temple last Saturday

This is my district