Week 47

Hola,

This week I've been trying to be like The Apostle Peter again (More on that later though).  This week we had a lot of really cool things happen.  For one, Rosario came to church!!!  At the same time, we've been able to find a ton of people that really want to progress and receive the blessings of the gospel.  

WE also had an awesome district activity today.  WE went to a small town called Cocorit.  There we found Iguanas the size of cars and metal monkeys.  We also ate Mexican pizza and bishops (the type of ice cream, not the ordained member of a ward), and made predictions for who would leave the district next week in transfers,and who would stay. Everyone says that I'm going to stay, which makes sense, but at least two people are expected to go.  We'll see what the verdict is though next week.

As I said though, this week I've been trying to be like the Apostle Peter.  Partly because, I read through first and second Peter this week in my personal study of the bible again.  The other part is that I'm looking at the context of these letters into perspective thanks to the bible dictionary.  

So what we need to understand from the context of these letters, is that they were probably written around the end of Peter's life.  In First Peter we Read that he is writing from Babylon,which is probably an illusion to Rome.  So we can probably assume that in addition to being the only words of the apostle written by him in the bible, they were also the last words that he ever wrote to the members of the Church near him.  In it what he does is he focuses  on the need for the members to be faithful to the gospel in spite of heavily persecution and apostasy.

With one of our investigators this week, we were talking about the importance of attending church, and how partaking of the sacrament fortifies us from worldly temptations and spiritually uplifts us.  Specifically, we told her that taking the sacrament would help here in her desire to keep the word of wisdom.  The problem for her was her work schedule. She works nights every day of the week, and going to church would require her to stay up one hour extra to attend sacrament meeting.   

So we did as Peter does in his epistles, and reminded her of the importance of obedience and faith to receive needed blessings.  She ended up coming to church with us this Sunday, At the end of Sacrament meeting, she was still very tired, but enjoyed the meeting a lot, and told us that she wanted to do everything possible so that next week she could stay for another hour of church.  If we do our Part, the Lord gives us the blessings we need to obey his commandments.

That's all the time for today though,

Elder Gooden

Week 31 Happy Christmas Season

Hola todos,

This week I've been trying to be like John the Baptist.  I just wish that this mean we had as many baptisms as he did, but more on that later.  

For starters, shout out to the Martins for the Halloween card I got.  As can probably be seen, the mail here takes a really long time to get to me.  On the bright side, it´s a form of communication that´s a little bit older and not as common, so it´s really fun to get and obvious to the other missionaries when someone else receives a letter or package.

As I said at the start, I´ve been trying to be like John the Baptist.   This one doesn´t have a long sermon afterwords, but just a simple update of what we´ve been doing.  This week we´ve begun the light the world event in the church.  For those of you that haven´t yet heard of it, or don´t fully understand what it is, it is an event of the church for the entire world.  A few weeks ago, the church released an advent calender of service.  Each day has a teaching of Christ that we can interpret in any number of ways to meet our own circumstances to provide service.  For example, today´s scripture is honor your father and your mother.  This could mean any particular thing, so long as we stay true to the spirit of Christmas.  How though might you ask does this tie into John the Baptist? He was the forerunner for Christ.  He was the voice that cried in the wilderness that prepared the way of the Lord.  It was he that was given the honor of baptizing the Savior and helping people turn their hearts to him.  By spreading the word of Light the World and living by the daily scriptures we get, I´ve been able to better act as his representative here in Mexico and help others prepare for when he comes the second time.

Also, following with the Christmas spirit, I've decided to share a Christmas message each week this month in my emails in edition to all of the other normal things.  This week, I decided to share something from the Polar Express.  For those that have seen the movie or read the children's book, the story revolves around a young boy as he begins to doubt if Santa really exists.  The resulting story is that in the middle of the night, a train pulls up to the side of his house, and takes him to the north pole.  

Through several twists and turns throughout the story, the boy sees several examples of Christmas magic in action.  Doubtful though, he is still convinced that there has to be  a reasonable explanation for why everything in this train is happening, and at times even goes as far to justify that this is all just a dream.  

This goes right up until that fate full moment when Santa comes out to go to his sleigh. The boy notices two things about what is going on in this moment of importance.  First, he is unable to see Santa thanks to the mass of other children and elves in front of him.  Secondly, he is unable to hear the sound of the sleigh bells until one of them falls off the sleigh and rolls towards his feet.  At this, he admits in what is doubtlessly a combination of defeat and a sincere change in heart, he admits audibly, though softly enough that he doesn't think that anyone can hear him two simple words: I believe.  His confession of faith allowed him to hear the sweet sound of the sleigh bells.

Unknown to him at the time of his confession, Santa had been walking towards him this entire time, and had arrived just in time to hear him.  Thanks to this statement, Santa chooses the boy to receive the first gift of Christmas, which becomes the sleigh bell.  

It is later that Christmas morning, that the boy shows the bell to his family, and while his sister is able to hear the sound at first, his parents are unable to.  The boy, now serving as the narrator of the story years later explains how as he later tried to share the joy of hearing the bell with his friends, many of them couldn´t hear.  and in time many that originally could, lost this privilege.  Even his sister in time found that she could no longer hear the bell.  But the author proclaims at the end of his book, "but the bell still rings for me, as it does for all who truly believe."

What great eternal truth lies hidden in this simple child´s tale!  Here we see a perfect example of how faith operates in the minds and hearts of all of God´s children.   Here we see someone who has been taught in the traditions of a believer, but has reached a point in their life where believing may no longer seem popular, easy, or practical.  At one point we learn about how the boy has become negligent in following with the traditions of his beliefs in things such as negligence to get a photo with a mall Santa, sending a letter to Santa, or setting out the milk and cookies.  Likewise, we can at times feel the same way to our own christian beliefs.  We may feel that the belief in Christ as the literal son of God, the Savior of the world who rose from the dead, and who now at this very moment is at the right hand of the father working to bring about the immortality and eternal life of mankind as a bit hard to swallow.  Maybe we think that it's easier to just say that he was a great prophet or a good person.  We can admit that we can learn things from his teachings to build our own moral character.  While none of these statements are wrong, if we minimize the nature of Christ to these characteristics, we loose sight of his divinity, his atonement, and basically, the things that make Jesus the Christ.

God though doesn´t want us to be kept in this state of ignorance or deniablility.  His plan is for all of us to come to a clear knowledge of the truth of his son.  So he sends messengers like the train conductor.  What we can see in this part of the story is that the train conductor´s arrival wasn´t by invitation, but was needed, and his mere presence was in fact a miracle.  In like manner, God has sent us people here in the earth to help us overcome our own trials of doubt, the prophets, and at a more local level, the missionaries.  While these messengers cannot give us their faith or their own spiritual experiences, they can help us by being a witness to the truth and help us know that we aren´t alone in believing things which aren´t seen but true"(Alma 32:21).

Finally, the real moment of truth comes to the boy.  At this moment, he is able to see all of the evidence of what people are saying.  He has seen the North Pole, he has spoken with elves.  He has had experience after experience after experience that while don´t necessarily provide definite proof, for he can still say that all of it is just a dream, his reasoning to believe has increased.  and now, the only thing between him and the blessings of seeings Santa are two simple words said with real intent.  

Likewise we have our own bits of evidence and guides to help us.  The Holy Ghost testifies of the truth of what we have seen or felt concerning Christ.  The book of Mormon is another testimony of the reality of the Resurrection and ministry of Christ in both Palestine and the Americas.  And not only that, we have all things on earth denoting that their is a God.  But if we refuse to act upon these experiences- if we don´t nourish our faith- we can´t enjoy the blessings of the Gospel.  As i said in an earlier letter, the principles of the Gospel rewritten in order, and we can´t progress to step two until we have completed step one.

The climax of the story is the ability to hear the bell and see Santa.  Something that I find very interesting about the story is that the writer chooses to call the bell the first gift of Christmas.  We all know that the first Christmas gift given wasn´t wrapped in a box with fancy paper or placed under a Christmas tree.  The first gift of Christmas was given over 2000 years ago in the little town of Bethlehem.  The reward of our faith is this same gift, the blessings of the Christ child.  We get to feel the sweet presence of his redeeming love; we are blessed with the comfort of the knowledge that we will all rise again; and, dependent upon our willingness to endure to the end, we may live again in the presence of the father.  

Echoing the words of the writer, I testify that the bell still rings for me, as it does for all who truly believe.  Christ lives.  He is more than just a fairy tail or an ancient teacher who´s lessons we often like to read to children.  He is the great King Emanuel, who even now is at the right hand of the Father.  He is the light, life and hope of the world.  

That's all for now

Elder Gooden

. . . . . . 

Some Pics from this week

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 21

Hola,

This week I've been trying to be like Captain Moroni, more on that later though.  Happy football season by the way.  

This week went well.  We have two investigators that are progressing really well so far and have baptismal dates for the start of this next month.  We also have a lot of other investigators that are steadily increasing in the faith, and we hope to have baptisms for them in the near future.  

I've also learned that the easiest way to make friends with people in Mexico is to baptize the members of their family.  There is a less active woman in the ward here that recently decided that she wanted to go back to church on her own free will.  At the same time she has a son that's eight years old, and she wanted him to be baptized.  Because she had been less active for a while, and the ward here isn't the most organized, we got to help her plan the baptism and she asked me to baptize her son.  Since the baptism, she has become a very active member of the ward and has been talking with the missionaries a lot.  It's just another example of how the gospel is able to bring people together and draw them closer to the Lord.

This week I've been trying to be like Moroni.  This is because whenever Moroni is talking, he sees the world in a very binary way.  In other words, for Moroni there is only right or wrong, good or bad, righteous or wicked.  Take for example his battle against the Zoramites(an ancient race of Nephite apostates).  During this battle, Moroni and his army through means of strategy and better equipment, as well as strength from the Lord had managed to surround the Zoramites and were at the point of destroying them if Moroni so desired.  At this point, He called a cease fire, and promised to let the Zoramites go if they surrendered their weapons of war and make a vow to never take up arms against the Nephites again.  

Originally, the Zoramites said that they were willing to give up there weapons and go in peace.  They did not however agree to make a promise that they felt they couldn't keep.  In response to this, Moroni responds: we will end the conflict.  He refused to retract the words that he had said, and decided, knowing that the best option was for the Zoramites to make this vow to continue fighting so as to compel them to make this vow or eliminate the potential threat in its entirety.  And as he planned, after a little bit more fighting, with the Nephites clearly in a better position to fight, the Zoramites agreed to his demands.  

What we can learn here, is that Moroni was justified to make his demands.  The Zoramites had attempted to attack the Nephite cities to bring them into captivity and subjugation.  Moroni only demanded that the fighting stop indefinitely, and until this goal was achieved, he refused to stop fighting.  He wasn't looking for a short term fix, he was looking for a long term solution to the problem.  

As missionaries and members of the church, we have the chance to be like Moroni every day in this regard.  Often at times, Satan tries to deceive us by making us choose between two good things, or tries to tell us that a little bad is acceptable if we can accomplish some good in the end. For example, Moroni could have chosen to listen to the Zoramites and agree to end the fight there with the condition of handing over there weapons.  But had he done that, the Zoramites would have returned with a larger army in a few years and continued the fighting. 

We all face our own Zoramite army today. we might feel that we can be justified in speaking harshly to someone because we disagree with one of their beliefs or ideas.  We might be struggling with addictions, and feel justified in partaking in smaller doses than normal.  We might think that so long as we meet the basic requirements for our callings in the church we can say that we are magnifying our callings.  We might say that we are keeping the Sabbath day holy if we just go to church for an hour or two before we go to watch the big game.  While all of these ideas might sound tempting, and many of us hear them regularly, they are just that temptations of the devil.  If we yield to them, we lay the foundation of our own destruction.

I invite everyone to be like Moroni.  Be unmovable in the faith, an unafraid to say no to sin, even if it seems like an easy of justifiable option at the time.  After all, the scriptures say that if all men were as Moroni, the very powers of hell would be shaken to their foundation so that the devil could have no power over the hearts of the children of men.

Elder Gooden

Week 11

Buenos,

This week I've been trying to be like Moroni again.  But first, I want to talk about how this week has gone.  

First of all, my companion and I have had a lot of cool personal miracles.  For example, we have a washing machine now!  Secondly, we have invested in a returnable bottle of coke.  And that truly is a gift from above.  We also have been able to find a lot of people to teach this week.  I've found that most people are willing to listen to us teach, but not everyone is willing to keep commitments.  So the good thing is that we've been able to find so many.  Maybe a few of them will be interested in getting baptized.  

If not, at least we know that we have been giving our best effort to invite them.  A lot of what I've learned this past week is that the physical numbers that we have to report in each week don't mean that much on a spiritual level.  To further explain this, I should explain that we need to report four numbers to our zone leaders each week: number of baptisms, number of members with a baptismal date that went to church that week, number of investigators that were in church, and the number of new investigators for that week.  We keep these numbers because experience has taught the church that the easiest way to see if an investigator is progressing in the church is if they are coming to sacrament meeting.  What these numbers don't show though are the other things that we do in the mission.

For example, we never mention how many less actives we've been able to help reactivate.  We don't talk about how we might of helped a bishop to hold ward council.  We don't talk about any of the ways that we've been able to strengthen the ward, or the way that less actives have been strengthened.  For example, we have this great family in the ward that is less active.  But even though they have been less active, they have been willing to feed the missionaries on a weekly basis.  Because of this, my companion knows that they hadn't been to church in at least three months.  But for the past two weeks they have gone and attended all three hours of church.  And the way things have been going, their reactivation will benefit their extended family.

It was just a good reminder for me that even if our reportable numbers seem down for a time, the Lord is still continuing to do his work through us.  The message of His gospel doesn't end with baptism or attending the temple.  Enduring to the end literally means to the end.  And the reward for such is exaltation.

As I said before, I've still been trying to be like Moroni.  I say this because of the things that here writes in Mormon 9.  To give it a brief summary, he writes about how God is a God of miracles, and I just love the way that he does it.  He starts by listing all of the miracles that have been recorded in the book of Mormon and the Old Testament, and asks us how we can believe that God is the same yesterday today and forever, and yet not continue to perform miracles.  and then to provide further evidence of this he talks about how we can tell who are messengers of God by the miracles that they work.  In it he says:

 in my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover; (Mormon 9:24)

Here in Obregon, I have had the chance to perform each of these miracles in one form or another.  The exception is the one about taking up serpents.  I've still not found any snakes in Obregon.  I'm sure I'll find them eventually though.  

The point though that I want to get across, is that God is a God of miracles, which has been one of the most profound ways that I've been able to reach people.  As I said in my last email, everyone here worships Saint Judas, who I learned was the Saint of lost causes.  Everyone here is searching for a miracle from God in their lives, and I believe that the same thing happens in the states as well.  We are all looking for some sort of Divine assistance or bit of luck.  But often at times we forget the source of where that assistance comes from.  

If anything in our lives is good, it has to come from God.  And God, is our loving father in heaven.  He delights in blessing us and helping us.  But our ability to receive miracles is based on our faith.  This is why in the next verse of Mormon 9, Moroni writes:

And whosoever shall believe in my name, doubting nothing, unto him will I confirm all my words, even unto the ends of the earth.(Mormon 9:25)

For example, a few weeks ago, my companion and I decided to visit a part of our area called Quechaweca for the first time.  As I mentioned in previous letters, this is a small town that should technically be it's own area but it just ended up in our area.  On our first day, the branch president (Who is like a pastor for small congregations for my non member friends) offered to give us a ride before he went to work.  But we had to leave so early that neither I nor my companion had time to eat breakfast that morning, and we didn't have a lunch appointment there either on account of no one knowing us yet.  I was about to say a prayer and call that day a fast, when I decided instead to pray for breakfast.  It was a strange prompting, but I felt that it was inspired, and I knew that I had the faith for God to deliver on this promise is some manner.  So that's what I did.

When we got to Quechaweca, we started by visiting a few of the members there to ask for references and to get to know the town a little bit better.  When we went to the first house, the family invited us in and offered us breakfast.  Then after breakfast, they asked us if we wanted to join them for lunch.  I know that this sounds like a somewhat silly thing to pray for, but in that moment, that was what I felt I needed, and the Lord was able to provide.  

The same thing goes for any other type of miracle that is just, so long as we have sufficient faith.  One of the greatest tools that the adversary tries to use so as to keep us from receiving miracles, is to tell us that God either can't do something or is unwilling to help us.  and this is completely false.  If we eliminate our doubts, and put our trust in the Lord, all things are possible.

That's all for now

Elder Gooden

Week 8

Hola 

So this week I've been trying to be like a lot of people.  As always, I'll go into further detail later in my email.  It's crazy tho think that I've already completed two months of my mission.  Part of me was wishing that I'd be fluent in Spanish by now, and have at least one baptism.  But I guess that since it's only been two weeks in the field, I can't get to upset.  My area is still probably the coolest area ever.  The people here have so little, but give so much of their time and talents to the Lord.  The small town in my area, or area 2 as I've started calling it, quechaweca, is an amazing example of this.  We had an activity there, and I was just expecting to see a few members and investigators that we had invited because we had been there only two times before.  In reality the entire branch of about 30 people showed up and brought five investigators with them.  These members knew that if they went to that activity they would hear the word of the Lord through two of his divinely called servants.  And what makes the story even more amazing is that before I got there, they hadn't had missionaries there for nearly five months.  The faith in that branch is amazing to me.

Being in Mexico is actually a really neat experience.  Just an idea about what life looks like hear, each missionary is given an allowance of about 1800 pesos a month. This translates roughly into $100.  By American standards this may seam like very little, but in Mexico it is the same salary that a medical intern gets paid.  It's part of the reason that buying things in Mexico has been so strange.  I've gotten used to the idea somewhat of what expensive looks like here, and have been trying to be frugal with the money that I've been given.  But every so often I step back and realize that by American standards, the price has been raised by two cents.  

Fast food is actually considered an expensive commodity here.  All of the McDonald's and KFC's here are really nice and only wealthy people go there.  With the exception of missionaries who have been saving all month to go to Carl's Junior.

As I said, I've been trying to be like a lot of people.  With regards to the language, I am trying to trust in the Lord like Enoch did so that he will open my mouth and I will be able to speak with enough power to cause all nature to follow my voice.  Or at the very least to open my mouth to speak confidently in Spanish.  I've been trying to be like Ammon in that I have been trying to learn a new culture and way of doing things so that the people will understand that I am here to serve them.  I've been trying to be like Jesus in my fasting and prayer so that I can perform the miracles God has foreordained me to perform to this people.  I've been trying to be like Alma, so as to be guided by the spirit to find the people that will be able to help me the most in my mission.  And I've been trying to be like Nephi in documenting as much of my mission as I can so that I will remember all of it.  

Sorry if that seems like a lot.  Things in the field are a bit different in that I'm no longer here to learn; I'm here to teach.  And through my teaching, I have been able to learn so much in bits and pieces, so that I can't focus on just one example from the standard works at a time. 

One ting though that I have learned is the sacrifice that fasting is supposed to be.  One of my investigators has been seriously ill for some time.  To help her, my companion and I decided to fast.  Fasting is a bit different when you are in a walking mission in Mexico than it is in Pennsylvania.  For one, air conditioning is a happy thought.  for another thing, it is so dry here that you can get dehydrated really fast.  What I learned though, is that  because the sacrifice of the fast is hard, the thing that you are fasting for should be of equal or greater importance.  I remember thinking back to all of the times before my mission that I would fast for: blessings that I didn't know I needed.  This experience changed my perspective on that.  Had it not been for the fact that what I was fasting for was important, I would have given up before my fast was through.  Or in other words, fasting for things I don't know I need is not a strong enough source of motivation to continue fasting.  The health of this investigator was. And so this might sound like a strange lesson to share, but the take away is that the power of the fast is real.  The blessings that come from it are assured.  If we have this ability to draw so close to God, and gain so great blessings from it, shouldn't we use this ability to invoke the help of the Lord for our greatest struggles first?  

Another example from my own life to give greater clarity:  I already mentioned that I would fast for blessings that I didn't know I needed.  During this time though, I was in the middle of high school.  I could have chosen to fast for help with the SATs, or getting accepted to the right college, or even mission prep.  I knew about the struggles of others that I could have chosen to fast for.  Instead, because I thought: well it's fast Sunday, I guess that it's time to go with out food for a while, I was robbed of so many potential blessings.  We should never forget the meaning of a commandment just because we have read the letter of the commandment.  I invite everyone that is reading this email to never punt away your fasts.  There are so many people that could benefit form your fasts, and so many blessings you receive from a sincere fast.  Just as we should spend time each week preparing for the sacrament, or time beforehand preparing for the temple, we should take the time to recognize the greatest need we have found in our lives, whether it be our own or someone else's, and prepare to fast for that purpose.

That's all for this week,

Elder Gooden