email 10/26/09
I love all your emails- Keep 'em coming! I especially liked the Faith/Tyce/Nathan/Ivy/Kathryn email this last week. Good stuff. I love to hear what's going on back home.
Each week gets successively better here. Fall is in full swing, and I have a ton of beautiful pictures of bright red and yellow trees to prove it. I have to reiterate how much I love the trees. I'm such a 'sap' when it comes to 'trees and nature'. Ha-ha... I kill myself, I'm so funny...
We had the craziest rainstorm yesterday too. The rain was coming down in thick sheets--it was like a monsoon. It also happened to be one of the Elders’ birthday, so we went out to eat and celebrate that night. We went to this wings place--it was awesome. All you can eat wings/fries/drinks all night and your choice between 20 different flavors of wings with each successive plate. We were there for about 2 hours--pretty much awesome! I think I gained at least 20 pounds from just that meal alone.
The members here feed us really well. I haven't gotten to eat very much of my own food because we are meeting with a lot of members and less actives right now in preparation for this awesome activity. We're doing this really awesome activity right now with our ward to teach them about 'Preach My Gospel' and how they can invite their friends to this 'Invite a friend to church day'. We're having a special meeting on Nov. 15th in which all of the members have taken challenges from us to pray about their friends and invite them to come to church on the 15th. We've organized it so that only the basic doctrines of the church will be taught in the form the Preach My Gospel organizes it: Sacrament Meeting=2 talks about the Restoration, Sunday School=Plan of Salvation, 3rd Hour classes=Gospel of Jesus Christ. It's a safe day to bring people who aren't familiar with the church to become acquainted with our basic doctrines and teachings without coming to some crazy fast and testimony meeting where they hear about how to 'Hie to Kolob' or some other weird stuff you hear over the pulpit from strange members... I could scare you with some of the stories I already have about fast and testimony meetings here. Your prayers would be appreciated in behalf of this activity we're planning. We also have 2 baptisms planned for that day as well, so keep praying hard for us.
So all the stuff we're doing right now keeps us incredibly busy. The work is progressing despite the fact the I'm afraid of sounding like an idiot every time I open my mouth to teach in Spanish. It's really scary when you don't speak the language, I'm not gonna lie. I trust in the promises of the Lord to His servants and open my mouth anyway with the faith that it will be filled.
We're teaching this Cuban lady right now (If you're unfamiliar with Cuban Spanish I'll fill you in: it's absolutely horrendous and impossible to understand) and she loved our lesson about the plan of salvation. Her whole family has passed away in a series of tragic events, and she left Cuba to get away from it all. She would be golden if it weren't for one thing, which is both good and bad--she finally got a job. It's good because there are SO MANY people out of work here and struggling to make ends meet, especially among the Latino population. It's a bad thing because she has to take on these ridiculous hours and now works 6 days a week, including Sundays. Bah! Satan has such a strong hold on things out here. We went to meet with one of our investigators on Saturday who has overcome drinking and smoking so he can get baptized just to find him drunk and hung-over because of an argument he had with his girlfriend. It's so sad to see the powerful hold these addictions have on people--they literally lose their agency when they're controlled by these addictions. We're helping him out now and continuing to give him our full support.
Stay away from drugs, alcohol, and smoking! Stay away from any addictive substance including pornography--they will weaken your character and strip you of your ability to exercise agency. You become a slave to their pathetic capacity to provide temporary 'happiness'. "Wickedness never was happiness".
Take care of your bodies and minds, and make sure that you feed your soul with 'that witch doth satisfy'. Christ has said that "whosoever will drink of the water which I shall give them will never thirst..." Partake of the 'living water', and find happiness and strength through our Savior, Jesus Christ.
I love you all! Have a happy Halloween this week!
Your Elder,
I love all your emails- Keep 'em coming! I especially liked the Faith/Tyce/Nathan/Ivy/Kathryn email this last week. Good stuff. I love to hear what's going on back home.
Each week gets successively better here. Fall is in full swing, and I have a ton of beautiful pictures of bright red and yellow trees to prove it. I have to reiterate how much I love the trees. I'm such a 'sap' when it comes to 'trees and nature'. Ha-ha... I kill myself, I'm so funny...
We had the craziest rainstorm yesterday too. The rain was coming down in thick sheets--it was like a monsoon. It also happened to be one of the Elders’ birthday, so we went out to eat and celebrate that night. We went to this wings place--it was awesome. All you can eat wings/fries/drinks all night and your choice between 20 different flavors of wings with each successive plate. We were there for about 2 hours--pretty much awesome! I think I gained at least 20 pounds from just that meal alone.
The members here feed us really well. I haven't gotten to eat very much of my own food because we are meeting with a lot of members and less actives right now in preparation for this awesome activity. We're doing this really awesome activity right now with our ward to teach them about 'Preach My Gospel' and how they can invite their friends to this 'Invite a friend to church day'. We're having a special meeting on Nov. 15th in which all of the members have taken challenges from us to pray about their friends and invite them to come to church on the 15th. We've organized it so that only the basic doctrines of the church will be taught in the form the Preach My Gospel organizes it: Sacrament Meeting=2 talks about the Restoration, Sunday School=Plan of Salvation, 3rd Hour classes=Gospel of Jesus Christ. It's a safe day to bring people who aren't familiar with the church to become acquainted with our basic doctrines and teachings without coming to some crazy fast and testimony meeting where they hear about how to 'Hie to Kolob' or some other weird stuff you hear over the pulpit from strange members... I could scare you with some of the stories I already have about fast and testimony meetings here. Your prayers would be appreciated in behalf of this activity we're planning. We also have 2 baptisms planned for that day as well, so keep praying hard for us.
So all the stuff we're doing right now keeps us incredibly busy. The work is progressing despite the fact the I'm afraid of sounding like an idiot every time I open my mouth to teach in Spanish. It's really scary when you don't speak the language, I'm not gonna lie. I trust in the promises of the Lord to His servants and open my mouth anyway with the faith that it will be filled.
We're teaching this Cuban lady right now (If you're unfamiliar with Cuban Spanish I'll fill you in: it's absolutely horrendous and impossible to understand) and she loved our lesson about the plan of salvation. Her whole family has passed away in a series of tragic events, and she left Cuba to get away from it all. She would be golden if it weren't for one thing, which is both good and bad--she finally got a job. It's good because there are SO MANY people out of work here and struggling to make ends meet, especially among the Latino population. It's a bad thing because she has to take on these ridiculous hours and now works 6 days a week, including Sundays. Bah! Satan has such a strong hold on things out here. We went to meet with one of our investigators on Saturday who has overcome drinking and smoking so he can get baptized just to find him drunk and hung-over because of an argument he had with his girlfriend. It's so sad to see the powerful hold these addictions have on people--they literally lose their agency when they're controlled by these addictions. We're helping him out now and continuing to give him our full support.
Stay away from drugs, alcohol, and smoking! Stay away from any addictive substance including pornography--they will weaken your character and strip you of your ability to exercise agency. You become a slave to their pathetic capacity to provide temporary 'happiness'. "Wickedness never was happiness".
Take care of your bodies and minds, and make sure that you feed your soul with 'that witch doth satisfy'. Christ has said that "whosoever will drink of the water which I shall give them will never thirst..." Partake of the 'living water', and find happiness and strength through our Savior, Jesus Christ.
I love you all! Have a happy Halloween this week!
Your Elder
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