March 22nd, 2017

The week was a blast! The missionary work is cruising, the zone is going strong, and me and Elder Dey are doing great. Some highlights of the missionary work this week are Susannah, who we taught at a member's home again. The member's shared their conversion stories with her and the Spirit was so powerful. She is very open and she said she doesn't  know if God is there yet but she really wants to know! We also randomly ended up going to a part-member's family who we are now teaching. The wife is less-active and the husband is not a member. We went over for like 30 minutes and shared a little spiritual thought then they invited us over for dinner and we taught the restoration and they are both going to come to church on Sunday! There were some downs this week like with Leon who we haven't been able to get in contact with and other things but all in all the week was great and we have seen so many cool miracles. I definitely understand why the Lord asks us to record the miracles we see and record His hand in our life, especially on a mission. I see so many amazing miracles on a daily basis that if I didn't write them down I would so easily forget them and they would become common place. That's one way we can drift away from the Lord is when we think He hasn't been there for us but really we just can't remember that He was there because we didn't take the time to look back and record. A cool miracle we saw last night was we were walking back from a lesson and we had to get going to have dinner and be on time for everything. As we were walking I looked back and saw two scruffy men in their 30's sitting on a bench drinking. I had a good feeling to talk to them so I immediately turned and walked. Elder Dey, who was slightly ahead of me looked back and saw I had walked off towards these guys and quickly followed. I went up to them and said, "I see you are enjoying your evening but I have a quick question for you. What brings you peace?" One of them looked at the ground and with a strong Romanian accent said, "nothing." The other didn't speak much English but we proceeded to talk to them about peace and happiness. After talking for awhile the one who spoke English agreed to meet with us later this week. As we walked away feeling like we were floating as we always do after we get a new investigator I thought about how cool it is how the Holy Ghost will guide us in all things. He will even ask us to do scary things like talk to two men drinking on a bench who would normally probably shout bad things at us but God knew they needed us to speak to them and he guided us to one of his lost children looking for peace.

The missionaries in the zone are doing fantastic. I had exchange with Elder Hulleman who is an office Elder from the Netherlands and we bonded really well and had good experiences. I love being able to get so close with so many missionaries.

Elder Dey and I have never been better and we have both become quite close and work really well together. I feel like the mission is just life as I know it. So many things that used to be foreign are now so natural and I can't really imagine how things are going to be when I get home. I'm loving it here.

March 15th, 2017

This week absolutely flew by! Highlights of the week were a great exchange with Elder Chapman, an Australian mate, who is one of the best guys I know. He is so humble and such a good worker. We had appointment after appointment that day so we didn't have a lot of finding time but the time we did have we found a new investigator. She's a mum with two kids and we had a great conversation and she was excited to learn more. Later that night we got a text from her saying she talked to her mom about it and the mom told her not to get involved with the mormons. I was pretty crushed about it. I don't really understand why things like that happen but I do know that the Lord's hand is in all things.

        The next pretty big things that happened this week was we had a massive 5 zone conference. Over half the mission gathered to hear the words of our mission president. It was great to see all my old friends, especially Elder Pongbundit, but the best part was some of the great insights I received. 

• The greatest gift is the Holy Ghost. It is essential to receiving eternal life. It acts on our physical body and makes use better.
• God knows and will always give us small promptings. Heed them and see miracles. Live worthy to hear the promptings.
• We can descend thoughts by the Spirit.
• The Spirit will fill us with love.
• We need to ask God for the gifts to teach so the we can be the messenger for the Holy Ghost.
• Don't rely on your talents. Rely on the Holy Ghost

We need to recognize the importance of the Holy Ghost. Of all the gifts He gives us, he promises us the Holy Ghost if we will follow Him. It is the greatest gift He can give us.

5 things we do to get the Spirit

1. Speak with God regularly 
2. Feasting daily in the scripture 
3. Striving for obedience 
4. See and record miracles
5. Daily selfless service 

As we get more spiritually mature, the Spirit will tell us what to do less and less. Trust in your own decision and just live good and go with it. 

Basically the biggest things I learned was about the Holy Ghost and how important it is to have His constant companionship.

We were also able to do a zone break out day which was great. We played with legos and did some very fun role plays. I love the people in my zone. 

Today was also a fun day. We did service as a zone at the temple. It was great to work on the temple grounds but I think the best part was being able to see Mike Turvey. He cleans carpets for the temple and we happened to be doing service at the same time so we crossed paths. Such a great day and week.

As far as people we are teaching. We have Leon who is progressing. He came to church this week and it went really well. He is adjusting to the ward really well. His date is for the 22nd of April. Susana is on date for the 8th of April and she is progressing really well too! We taught her 3 times this week, one of them being at a member's house. The husband is on the stake presidency and is a beast. The teach went super well and she is really searching for her answer. She is a vet nurse and loves nature. She has no real belief in God but she has a desire to. It is such a pleasure to teach her because she is such a happy and curious person. I love this gospel.

Oh I forgot to show you this big chair hahahahahahaha it's little things in life that make me smile. Well I guess this is a pretty big thing hahaha sorry that's was a dad joke...

Talked to a random guy in a truck

March 8th, 2017

     The week has been great!! We had another zone interview day which went so well. We did three classes again and I took over the class about teaching the role of the Holy Ghost. We just did loads of practice role-plays which was so fun to critique. The missionaries in the zone are all really good teachers. Even the new missionaries did really well. Another fun part about that day was I got to cook for the zone. I made chili with pasta and rolls. It was pretty random but tasted good and was the fastest thing I could cook for 26 people.

     Monday we went on exchange with the Worthing Elders. I went with Elder Vieira. He is from Brazil and was baptized 1.5 years before his mission. One of the best ways to describe him is he is like a Brazilian version of Elder Pongbundit. Such a humble and kind man who is filled with faith. A cool miracle we had while on exchange was visiting a man named Leon who is one of our baptismal dates. He has recently been going through an extremely hard time. His wife died a few years ago and he got addicted to alcohol shortly after. He has recently been on a good streak of not drinking but his girlfriend broke up with him and he slipped back in last week. We went by Monday and he was super super sick. He was in a ton of pain and throwing up. While teaching Leon about the atoning power of Christ, Elder Vieira put his hand on Leon's shoulder and told him he loves him and knows Christ can help. He then told a story about how his brother back in Brazil was addicted to alcohol but over came it through Christ. It was such a powerful moment. I then asked if he knew what a blessing for the sick was and he said no so I explained and asked if he wanted one and he said yes. We gave him a blessing and the Spirit was so so strong. As soon as we finished I asked him how he felt and he said this may sound weird but all of the pain is gone. It was such a powerful moment and we testified that he could overcome and change through Christ. I learned a lot this week and was filled with so much love for the people around me.

     Sunday we had a multinational broadcast from Elder Ballard. My favourite talk was by Elder Dyches of the 70 on developing spiritual resistance. It's the ability to rebound after failure or trial. Resilient people see failure as a form of helpful feedback. To gain spiritual resilience we need to have our lives focused on Christ and rely on the Holy Ghost as our companion. Hope gives us resilience and the spiritually resilient are always obedient. Because we are obedient we receive the Holy Ghost and can heed the promptings we receive or the feelings we get. They seek to find the meaning of difficult situations. I loved it and am so grateful for the things I've learned this week.

my zone and chili