Week 30

Hola batos,

This week I've been trying to be like the prophet Jeremiah, more on that later though.  For starters, we got the news on transfers this week, and for the first time ever, I´m going to be staying in an area with the same companion.  I finally have the same number of companions as transfers in my mission.  So that´s actually a bit exciting.  I'll finally get to see if I can handle living with someone else for more than six weeks at a time.  With some companions I'd thought that I could.  With others, not as much.  I think that this transfer will go well though.

This week we had exchanges with the zone leaders, which was fun.  I forgot how much I miss being in a city surrounded by people that I can talk to.  They also get bikes in that area, which was really fun to have for a day.  We've also gotten a lot of time to talk with people of other faiths and learn a bit more about the other religions here.  For example, one thing that is very different in the Mormon church than any other religion, is that anyone is allowed to partake of the sacrament.  All of the other Christian churches, the Catholics, and the Jehovah´s Witnesses only let baptized members take the sacrament.  I never realized that this was something different about our church.  Another thing that is different is that most churches have a different idea about the meaning of the Gospel of Christ.

Most people that I've talked with here, and the way that I thought before my mission, is that the Gospel is church.  Or in other words, everything that goes on in the church from prayer and scripture study to missionary work is the Gospel.  While all of these things tie into the Gospel of Christ, it is actually a lot more easy to understand and follow.

The Gospel of Christ consists of five elements: faith in Jesus Christ and his atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the holy ghost, and enduring to the end.  That´s it.  Curtain call.  Sermon´s over.  But even though it´s easy to learn what these five elements or steps are, it takes a lifetime to put them fully into practice.  That´s why we have the organization of the church to help us.

What also needs to be understood, is that the Gospel, as above mentioned is written in a specific order.  We start to follow Christ with faith.  This leads us to do things such as pray, read the scriptures, and attend church.  It eventually leads us to repentance as we come to understand our dependency on Christ and we demonstrate our trust in him.  Repentance without faith is nothing.

But when we repent in faith, we are able to achieve spiritual cleanliness.  This cleansing power qualifies us to receive the blessings of baptism.  Baptism as a sanctifying ordinance, draws us closer to God, and we become worthy to receive the constant companionship or the gift, of the Holy Ghost.  It is the gift of the Holy Ghost which guides us to increase our faith and understanding of Christ, and helps us endure till the end, or as I´ve written before, to remain in joy.  

What can be clearly seen though is that without going through the first steps, we can´t enjoy the latter blessings, and once we get to the latter blessings, those first steps become the next phase of our gospel journey.

As I said in the beginning, I´ve been trying to be like Jeremiah.  The reason why, is because Jeremiah went through an extreme level of persecution and had to stem the tide of idolatry nearly single handedly while the Jewish state was under siege from Babylon.  Needless to say, his sermons get a little repetitive very quickly, and the people tend to get more and more angry with him as time goes on.  Here in Bamoa, I´m not threatened with prison time or execution.(even if the mafia has started sending hit men down our street).  I also don´t have to worry about a large scale invasion.  What I do have to deal with though are people that don´t want anything to do with us, and maybe have anti American feelings.  At the same time, many of the members here are really just waiting for another Latino missionary to come.  The needs out here are very different from those in the states, and so at times it can be hard to help a branch with an attendance level lower than the deacons quorum back at home.  But just like with Jeremiah, I don´t really  have any other option but to just go out and do the work, and hope for blessings of obedience.  

That´s all for now

Elder Gooden

A few more things just sent to mom and dad . . . .

I've learned that I have the ability to say things as they are, and I can rely on my companion to make things more human

Favorite part of his mission so far - just being very blunt and honest with people about the importance of keeping their commitments to God 

On being like Jeremiah -That´s what bamoa has taught me.  The persecution is just different here though.  Anti american feelings fun strong in small towns, most people just decide to blatently ignore us as we try to talk to them through a screan door, and they prefer to tell us to come at the only hour of the day they aren´t home.  I'm surrounded by people that don't listen to me if I don't speak with boldness, and when I do decide they don't want to talk with us anymore.  Counting down the weeks till I leave.  11 weeks, 6 days, 7 hours and 13 minutes

On Thanksgiving - we didn't eat that day.  it's not a holiday here.  The family that we were supposed to eat with had to cancel.

I´m living off of about ten dollars a week right now

On wednesday, the mafia killed three people because their family members didn´t pay up on something.  I was about three kilometers away at the time.  It did happen about five minutres away from our house though.


Also - a letter from President Myers this week:

Dear Sister Gooden,

Thanks for your email.  Your son is a wonderful missionary.  His Spanish is excellent and spiritually he is becoming a powerful missionary.  I am so proud of him.  He is a long way from our mission offices.  At first, I wondered if he would be okay being so independent.  I would like to  let you know that he is thriving and doing fantastic.  About your packages, if your packages are arriving in 2 weeks, that is the optimum.   Especially, since Elder Gooden is serving in Estación Bamoa.  I will be seeing him almost every week during the month of December so I can always get a package to him quicker than usual on our part.

I hope you had a great Thanksgiving and that your holiday season is bright and wonderful.

Con Amor

Presidente  Shaun Myers

Week 29

Feliz día de gracias!

This week I´ve been trying to be like Abinadi.  No, I´ve not been threatened with death by fire, and no, I´ve not convinced someone to start baptizing thousands of people.  I probably won´t even really celebrate Thanksgiving.  More on all of this later though.

This week we had zone conference, 18 new investigators, and it was the second to last week of this transfer.  For all I know, I´ll be writing from Los Mochis next week, but until then, I´ve still got plenty of work to do here in Bamoa.  For starters, President Myers decided to focus on the importance o finding this week.  In layman's terms, this translates into the least enjoyable time for a missionary if all you can do is knock on doors.  Because of this, many missionaries like to fill their time with appointments with investigators, who may or may not be progressing, and trying to do anything else other than contact if possible.  This is why this last zone conference was dedicated to the various ways that we can contact, and why contacting is so important.  Put plainly, it´s that for every 27 new investigators that we find, statistically speaking, three of them end up going to church.  and of those three that go to church, only one of them end up getting baptized.  So, statistically speaking, if we don´t find a ton of people in our missions to teach, and make sure that we use our time wisely with them, we´ll never get to baptize.  So, the invitation was to redouble our contacting efforts and TALK WITH EVERYONE!!!

We also focused a lot on the importance of the Sabbath, and President and Hermana Myers shared something that I find very interesting.  It´s that one of the most fundamental ways that we can see if we are true followers of Christ or not is if we keep the Sabbath day holy.  Not only is it  an outward expression of our inner commitment to God, but that an apostle of the lord has said(this was back in about 1915, so I´m not entirely sure but I think it was from Joseph R Snow) that whether or not we sanctify the Sabbath, shows if our commitment to Christ is real, or if his sacrifice means little or nothing to us.  Strong but true words.

This translated over well to our week with finding new people.  18 new investigators was a new personal best for one week, we even found a family of four that were able to start recognizing the spirit after the opening prayer.  With a little luck, we can get a baptism within a month with them.

By the way, for everyone that saw the photo of the giant spider from last week´s email, part two of that story ended this week.  we came home one night, and we found it in the bathroom spread out over the entire bathroom sink.  after learning that the spider was really fast, and that it is immune to cockroach killing insecticide, I finally got him with the end of my shoe.  Photos of that will come in next week.

As I said, this week, I´ve been trying to be like Abinadi.  As a child I always looked up to Abinadi for his boldness and plainness.  Faced with the prospect of certain death, he chose to not only bear his testimony of the Gospel, but clearly plainly point our the errors of their ways repeatedly.  The most important thing though is that he always brought things back to Christ.

In the field, and for members of the church, we often have a fear of sharing what we know to be true.  We find it difficult to always take advantage of the moments God gives us each day to represent Him or to share a part of his gospel.  We close our mouths out of fear of a negative response or rejection.  For these feelings, I´ve found that the perfect remedy is found in Doctrine and Covenants 3:6-10: "And behold, how oft you have transgressed the commandments and the laws of God, and have gone on in the persuasions of men. For, behold, you should not have feared man more than God. Although men set at naught the counsels of God, and despise his words- Yet you should have been faithful; and he would have extended his arm and supported you against all the fiery darts of the adversary; and he would have been with you in every time of trouble. Behold, thou art (inset name here), and thou wast chosen to do the work of the Lord, but because of transgression, if thou art not aware thou wilt fall. But remember, God is merciful; therefore, repent of that which thou hast done which is contrary to the commandment which I gave you, and thou art still chosen, and art again called to the work"

The fact of the matter is that everyone is called to the work.  We all are given opportunities to help strengthen the Kingdom of God.  And all of us have the chance to receive personal revelation to help us in this work.  and if we chose to love God more than we fear men, we will have success.

Now, I know that I´m going a little bit out of order in how I normally write these things.  Normally, I explain how I´m trying to be like someone and then I have the big take home part of my emails.  This one is in a bit of a reversed order.  But the big thing that I noticed is that there is power in boldness.  I remember that it was nearly two months ago when a reference took my softspokenness for timidness, and that made me never want to talk quietly again.  the desire to not be called timid led me to be more bold in my invitations, and the bolder my invitation have gotten, the more ready I feel the spirit is to help me in this work. Maybe it might offend some people at times, but I´ve not been called to teach the gospel of itching ears.  And like every missionary likes to say in the mission, if I die out here, that´s a guarantied exaltation.  In all seriousness though, I´ve found that it´s always been much better to be bold and active in the missionary work than to be timid and passive.

That´s all for now,

Elder Gooden