Letter #84

Hey guys!

Sorry, but we still don't have any news on what is going to happen here in the Rio Grande District! All I really know for sure is that Elder Iman and I wont be companions anymore. For his last transfer President called him to be a district leader!

This week went by really fast. The 3 days worth of trainings was awesome! President Maluenda continues to blow my mind everytime we have a meeting with him. The 4 and a half hour training on pre-ordination was awesome. We talked a lot about the premortal life and really how blessed and how great we were in the pre existence. I've never really come to realize how important this life is and every little decision we make in this life. Every decision and step we take here can either benefit us in our progression to become more like Christ or it will knock us down. There is no middle ground. This life is so important! And sometimes we take that for granted, well at least i know i have. For everyone who is here on earth has made it and passed the first estate, great job! Now pass the second! God has so much in store for us and all he asks us to do is live this Gospel!

Because of the pretty crazy week its been, we havent had to much contact with any of our investigators. Amanda isnt doing to hot right now, she kinda lost a lot of desire to be baptized and Yenny and Teresa have just gone missing, we dont really know where they are. I'm stoked for the next transfer, I know the Lord has some big things in store for us!

Love you guys!

Elder Brian

*Ill send pics next week!

Letter #83

Happy Valentines Day!

Its a little weird not emailing on a Monday, no I am not being an apostate missionary don't worry, its just we have "3 Day Training" for all the mission leaders at the beginning of next week and the library won't be open because of the holiday. So you get the email a little early. Boo ya!

When a lot of people think of missionary work, they think of missionaries hitting the streets and talking to people, which is a big part, but not all. This week, we took so much time organizing our area and the branch. I'll just put it this way, over half of the members on the branch list that we have been looking for don't exist anymore or have already passed away or have an address too crazy to even track down. And it doesn't help that the branch doesn't have a clerk to help us organize all this stuff. Our branch president has been thinking of making me the branch clerk.... that would be interesting. So we've been spending a lot of time trying to track down people to see who still exists and who doesn't, its kinda like a big game of hide 'n seek haha. On the good side, God is a God of order so i definitely know this is going to benefit us in some way or another in terms of investigators and less-active work. 

Our investigator friend Amanda is doing great! She still has some real strong desires to come to church, we are just trying to get her to have those desires to be baptized. She has been taught a lot in the past, her best friend was baptized, but we found out that on the day of Amanda's baptism is the past, she got scared and bailed out. So we have been inviting her to pray a lot about how she can really come to know and find out for herself if she should be baptized at the end of this month or in early March. 

Our other investigator part family Teressa the mom and Yenny the daughter, they are doing great! We had an awesome lesson the other night with them and the Relief Society President and first counselor Sister Escobar and Sister Alvarez. Teressa and Yenny have also learned a lot about the church in the past but some little doubts that they had stopped them from progressing but we found out that Yenny has been getting in to some post high school trouble i guess and Teressa wants her to stop and do better so they've both accepted to come to church this Sunday and hopefully we can help them out more! They are awesome. 

 I'm pretty stoked for the "3 Day Training" next week. So for 3 days I'll be down in McAllen hearing awesome trainings from President Maluenda! I heard he is preparing a 4 and a half hour training on Foreordination and Pre-Earth life. Its going to blow my mind! He gave us some scriptures that we needed to study up on before then and I am already learning a ton! Especially from my Patriarchal Blessing. You never know how great your patriarchal blessing is until you actually study it hard! Those things are chalk full of good blessings. 

Last week we went down to La Joya for Pday. The elders down there found a little soccer place out in the middle of nowhere that some guys built so we went down as a zone and played, it was sweet! It turned out so good that i think on Monday we are going to go back. This is for sure something that we need to build back up in Utah! Its sick!

So, i wont be emailing on Monday and this is the last week of the transfer, so the Monday after this one I'll let you guys know on transfer news! Anything could happen! So if you happen to send anything please just send it to the mission office.

Love you guys!

Elder Brian

Letter #82

Hey Family!

This week was sweet! You guys probably here that a lot, I guess every week out here in the mission is a good one.

This week we had a zone meeting and we are now switching up some key indicators for the mission. Its really focused on less-active work and establishing the kingdom here. It will be fun and cool to see how much it affects the work in the up-coming weeks.

Something that changed in parts of the mission, in the McAllen area, is that there are now only one set of elders per ward. And if your area covers an English ward than you are only allowed to teach in English and its the opposite with Spanish. Luckily it didn't affect the Rio Grande branch or other parts of the mission, only the McAllen stakes. Its encourages a lot of member work so that you don't go looking for people in the streets and happen to find someone in a language that you cant teach in, but obviously if it does happen, they just dish the investigator off to the elders that speak that language.

We had some great less actives at church yesterday. It was a huge miracle. Elder Iman and I were asking for a big miracle of having someone come to church and we were blessed with 2 less-actives who also brought 2 friends! It was sweet. We will start working with them a lot this week and see how progress goes. One of the investigators is Amanda and the other one is Brittany. They are both former investigators and are friends of a lot of members. Hopefully we can start seeing some really good progress with them this week.

Life is good. The mission is great.

Love

Elder Brian

Letter #81

Well, we tried our hardest to not see the Superbowl last night but everyone in the streets just brought their Tvs outside and were all grilling carne and it would be a lie if I said we didn't see a couple plays here and there. Talk about that catch by the Seahawks wide receiver, the ball bouncing off his face mask. What a play!

Elder Iman and I are doing great! This week we had our first meal from a member that lives in our area this transfer!! It was good. Elder Iman has gaseritus. Basically he gets heart burn and acid reflex if he eats any type of spicy food. Its like the worst combination, being in south Texas and having gaseritus. I've grown to like spicy food a lot down here. I now understand why Hispanics put chile on anything and everything! Also, to add to the companionship unity, we've both had a cold for the past week. Hopefully that will pass quickly.

As for now, still no investigators that are too solid but we are seeing huge progress with our less actives! Our little branch had a total of 67 people in sacrament meeting! It was awesome! I've never seen so many people at church since I've been here. Usually we hit about 50 or so, so 67 was a big jump.

The mission is the best. There is not a place in the world I would rather be than serving as a representative of Jesus Christ at this time.

Love

Elder Brian

Mexico on the left, the U.S. on the right. 

Letter #80

Hey!

 

The conference with Elder Oaks was awesome! You would think apostles are very uptight strict people but man, Elder Oaks is hilarious! I've never seen a man have more fun doing what he has been called of God to do than Elder Oaks last Saturday. It definitely helped me learn a lot about enjoying everything that you do and getting the most out of it.  Not to forget Elder Robbins and Elder Wright also gave really good talks and spoke a lot about change and how change is required of everyone, especially us a Latter Day Saints. 

 

Elder Iman and I are doing great! This week we didn't have a lot of time to work in our area. The conference was Saturday morning and we went down and got to spend the night in McAllen because Sunday morning we also had Stake Conference. It was fun! Its been a pretty long time since I've been in an apartment with more than two elders haha. Im kinda exiled out in Roma. After that I worked down in McAllen for the rest of Sunday night and until later I'll be here working with Elder Knighton from Maine! He's great. 

 

Last night we had a couple really powerful lessons in the stake presidents home. President Chandler. We had dinner with him and his family and after that, his son brought his friend over and we taught him the restoration. It was awesome. The spirit was so strong, especially because we were in the home of a member with members who loved and cared for the young man we were teaching. After that, the stake presidents daughter brought a friend over and we taught her about the plan of salvation. That was also really cool. Its great to see what a great example the Stake President and his family are of missionary work. A great leader leads by example. Back to back lessons in the stake presidents home, I wish everyday was like that!

 

We don't have any investigators as of right now. We are just trying to get things up and running through our members and hopefully we can start finding some good people for the end of February and into March! Time is flying a lot faster than I would like it to haha.

 

Sorry for no pictures! I don't have my camera cord on me, but I'll take some good ones this week and I'll send some next p day!

 

Love you guys!

Letter #79

Transfer news! I'm staying here in Roma! I'm not too surprised at all but I'm stoked to be here again. My new companion is Elder Iman. He's pretty cool. He goes home in about 2 months. So... that'll be interesting. I've never had a comp that has been so close to going home. Hopefully he holds together well haha.

This past week we had interviews with President Maluenda. It was great! Its always good learning from that spiritual giant. Cool fun fact, President Maluenda has actually lost like 45 lbs in the last couple months! He took all of the general conference talks pretty seriously, especially the one by Elder Jorg Klebignat and the part about taking care of yourself physically. He really is a great example of a leader, of one who leads by example.

This week we are focusing on pure member work! I kinda figured out that we are struggling so much because we are finding all these investigators off the streets and they have no connection to members whatsoever! So when we show up to second lessons, they bail out and we never see them again. Now I'm not saying that you cant find prepared people off the streets, because trust me, I've found and baptized my fair share, but it is so much easier and more reliable when you find investigators through members, that way they have that support right from the start and they are actually willing to come and feel comfortable at church. Elder Iman and I made some super deep plans this morning on what we are going to do and how we are going to do it to get this plan up and running and I cant wait to start seeing these miracles!

This weekend we are having another huge mission tour and Elder Oaks will be coming to speak to us! Its going to be awesome. Then on Sunday, we have our stake conference and Elder Oaks and Elder Robinson of the 70 will be speaking. This weekend is going to be pretty gnarly.  I'm pretty stoked.

My view across the border into Mexico.

Downtown Roma

Elder Iman

Letter #78

Whats up!

So transfers are tomorrow! But..... we still haven't gotten any news as to where anyone is going and who is staying and what not, so I guess I will have to let you guys in on the news next week. Or mom, I'm sure you can hunt it down somehow. ;)

I loved this transfer, I've loved every transfer but this transfer has been pretty hard. I came into a pretty dang successful district and I felt like I kinda screwed it up. Because the months of December and January we have not had a lot of success. We haven't been finding at all, the people we do find, flake off super quick and this branch isn't all that there yet to give us the support that we hope for.  I was listening to a really great talk by Elder Holland, its called Missionary Work and The Atonement. This sums it up a lot better than I can:

"Anyone who does any kind of missionary work will have occasion to ask, Why is this so hard? Why doesn’t it go better? Why can’t our success be more rapid? Why aren’t there more people joining the Church? It is the truth. We believe in angels. We trust in miracles. Why don’t people just flock to the font? Why isn’t the only risk in missionary work that of pneumonia from being soaking wet all day and all night in the baptismal font?

You will have occasion to ask those questions. I have thought about this a great deal. I offer this as my personal feeling. I am convinced that missionary work is not easy because salvation is not a cheap experience. Salvation never was easy. We are The Church of Jesus Christ, this is the truth, and He is our Great Eternal Head. How could we believe it would be easy for us when it was never, ever easy for Him? It seems to me that missionaries and mission leaders have to spend at least a few moments in Gethsemane. Missionaries and mission leaders have to take at least a step or two toward the summit of Calvary."

Maybe right now, I'm just spending those few moments in Gethsemane. Its hard, its tough, but something good is gonna come out of it, I know it. I know the atonement is real. I can't count the amount of times I've knelt down and prayed at night and felt that love that Jesus Christ has for me. I love my mission. It has changed my life. The amount of good times exceeds that of the amount of tough times, but its through the tough that we learn the most.

Love you all!

Elder Brian