Week 20

Hola,

So this week I've been trying to be like President Giles, I'll explain more of that though in a little bit.  

This week has been a little bit strange.  Three of our investigators moved out of our area, We've started hitch-hiking, and we celebrated Mexican Independence Day.  Something that I've found very strange about Mexico is that many people are very unhappy with their way of life here.  Many people are unemployed, the standard of living here is very low, and most people in general are looking for a better life.  However, as soon as September 16th comes around everything changes.  The national colors come out, everyone is celebrating, and everyone constantly is shouting viva Mexico.  It also means that the missionaries get a ton of extra food to eat in the week.  

As for the hitch-hiking story, we've been assigned a third town to visit that's about three miles away and no bus goes to visit it.  Since we walk everywhere, this means that we can waste two hours walking to and from this town or get a ride from complete strangers.  It's been a fun experience.  It's actually extremely common here in Mexico and many people with cars are willing to help us out.  

As for why I've been trying to be like President Giles, he gave me two pieces of advice that have managed to stick in my mind since I got here.  One of them, is that while I'm on my mission, it's not about me (as for those that are reading this and/or aren't from the Harrisburg area, President Giles is the Stake President.  In other words, he's like a regional leader of the church that among other things interviews prospective missionaries to see if they are ready and worthy to serve a mission.)  This piece of advice has especially been present in my mind this week because of what's been going on in our area.  I've found that my new companions, while not entirely disobedient, like to sleep after lunch.  On one occasion, we stopped back by our house, and the consensus between the two of them was that they should take a fifteen minute nap.  At this point, the words of President Giles rang through my head, and I shared them with my companions.  I think that this got to them a little bit because after that they were constantly acting like we needed to work even harder than we were and visit more people.  They also tried to brush off sleeping as a joke, and that they didn't really want to take a break.  But I felt something change within me from that point on. I felt as if in the moments right after, the spirit confirmed that I had been tested to see what kind of missionary I wanted to be, and in that instance I passed.  For the rest of that day, I felt even more strongly the influence of the spirit in guiding us to who we needed to teach, and helping me to understand even more what my investigators were saying and what they needed to hear from me.  

That's all for now.

Elder Gooden

Week 18. I'm a zone leader...

Psych! 

But I have been trying to be like my mission president this week.  

This week has been very interesting.  Elder Sanchez and I had our last week together.  Plot twist: he left Valles and not me.  He's now serving as a zone leader in a different area.  I've finished my training in the mission field, and am now a regular missionary here in the field.  I've also gotten to the point that Spanish is coming more naturally to me to speak than English.  This will probably start to reflect in my letters after a little while.  So if my grammar sounds a little funny,  please understand that I'm thinking half of the time in Spanish.

Last week, I invited everyone to think about how the priesthood has blessed their lives or how they could magnify their priesthood callings.  To share my personal experience with the challenge, I've been thinking about the significance of priesthood blessings.  As priesthood holders, we have the power to call down blessings from heaven to satisfy the needs of other people.  As a missionary, and a holder of this priesthood, I have the ability to bless the lives of everyone that I see and teach.  This power is one of the examples of how the Lord has put his trust in me to help the people of Obregon.  

As for why I've been trying to be like my mission president, we had a special lecture this week where we learned more about how to teach with the Spirit.  In this lecture, I learned something very interesting that he said.  He was talking about how the Lord had commanded him to give the mission this special lecture and how because the Lord had commanded him to give that lecture, It would be irrational to believe that his spirit wouldn't be with him during it.  

As a missionary, I can apply this same level of confidence in my lessons.  I have been called of the Lord to preach the Gospel here in Spanish.  As his representative, it is irrational for me to believe that he wouldn't give me his spirit as a guide to help me in my lessons as well as to learn Spanish.  This has led me to reflect upon one of my earlier emails about how true freedom and happiness comes when we submit ourselves completely to the will of the Lord.  He is the Good Shepard.  He knows what is best for us.  And we can understand his will through prayer and following the promptings of the Holy Ghost.  

Following the pattern I set last week, this week also has a challenge.  I want to invite everyone to pay more attention to the promptings of the spirit this week.  For those that are unfamiliar with his voice, he communicates with us through our thoughts and through our feelings.  At times he has been described as a warmth and other times as a still small voice.  He always communicates with us though in a way that we can understand and recognize that his message is from God.  

Also, because I like getting emails and what to hear everyone's experiences of how following the spirit has blessed your lives this week.

That's all for now

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 10

Happy Belated Forth of July everyone,

This week I've been trying to be like Moroni.  

First though, I need to say that my mission knows how to have an awesome Fourth of July celebration.  So this past week, on P-day, our mission president put on this huge celebration for us with water games and Mexican hot dogs.  It was a welcome break from the heat.  I've also come to learn that Mexico is very superstitious.  As a result, everyone is awestruck whenever they hear that we have given a blessing (many people think that the power to do so died out with the apostles) and everyone likes to worship the Virgin Mary or Saint Jude.  By the way, if anyone knows what Saint Jude is the saint of, that could help me out because he apparently is the patron saint of Mexico and no one knows why.  Also, children have been our most receptive investigators so far this week.  That is at least when they don't believe that the second coming is when Jesus steals all of the children and then burns the earth.  It turns out that a lot of the work here is just expelling false beliefs that the gospel is something attainable to only a few chosen disciples, or that some great feat has to be performed.  The path to salvation is as Alma says, easy.  Through the principles of faith, repentance, baptism by immersion for the remission of sins, the laying on of hands for the gift of the holy ghost, and enduring to the end everyone is eligible to obtain eternal life.

As I said, I've been trying to be like Moroni this week.  I say this for those who don't know, that Moroni was the last prophet of the book of Mormon and witnessed the entire destruction of his people.  He also was the narrator of the book of Ether.  In Ether Chapter 12, Moroni takes a break from his narration to talk about the importance of faith and the future of the Book of Mormon.  In it, he talks about how he and his father aren't very good writers, and how he fears that those who will read the book of Mormon will make fun of it, and on the basis of their terrible writing skills, think that it isn't the word of God.  But then he goes on to write:

26 And when I had said this, the Lord spake unto me, saying: Fools mock, but they shall mourn; and my grace is sufficient for the meek, that they shall take no advantage of your weakness;

27 And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.

28 Behold, I will show unto the Gentiles their weakness, and I will show unto them that faith, hope and charity bringeth unto me—the fountain of all righteousness.

29 And I, Moroni, having heard these words, was comforted, and said: O Lord, thy righteous will be done, for I know that thou workest unto the children of men according to their faith;

In a lot of ways, I can relate to Moroni in this sense.  Spanish has been a lot harder than I originally thought that it would be.  And while I can participate in the lessons, I only know the doctrinal points that I was taught at the MTC and a few other words that I've been able to pick up since getting here.  And when I do speak, my language is very slow and with very broken grammar.  But one thing that my companion pointed out to me is that because I speak with such rarity, and it requires effort on my part to say what I want to say, people tend to pay a bit more attention.

In a way, I guess that the Lord has been working the same promise.  I am a missionary of many weaknesses, especially when it comes to speaking.  But I have also seen that the gift of tongues is real.  The spirit has been guiding me as to what I need to say in the moment, and what I need to understand.  

I'm not the same missionary that I was before my mission, or even during the MTC.  I've found that all of my scriptural knowledge is practically useless here.  For one, not to many people read the Bible or Book of Mormon here, so they don't understand the scriptures half of the time when we read them.  Secondly, in the time it would take me to open my scriptures and point to a doctrinal point, my companion is able to explain it.  On the bright side, it's fun to be with a guy who is as well versed in the scriptures as I am.  

I've also come to see things that were written in the scriptures differently.  I've found that a lot of the stories that I thought were just parables or some other thing were more literal than I originally thought.  I've been able to learn so much from my mission, it's hard to fit it all into one weekly email.  If anyone has any specific questions, about my mission, or what I've learned about the doctrine of Christ since I've gotten here, feel free to email me.

Elder Gooden

Pictures from this week . . .