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 22, Conference, I'm training, and I'm off to my second area . . .

Hola,

This week, I've been trying to be like the apostle Peter. More on that later though.  

First off, I loved conference.  As always, it's a great experience to listen to the words of the living prophets and learn more about how we can draw closer to Christ.  One thing that I noticed was really big in the conference was the theme of repentance, and how it has the power to draw us closer to Christ.  I also loved Elder Oaks talk about the Family a Proclamation to the World, and how it is an example of modern revelation and proof that God once again talks with man.

This week I also received the biggest shock of my life so far.  We had special transfers, and I was assigned to train a new missionary, or rather to finish his training.  For some reason, his companion was reassigned to another part of the mission, and so now I have to finish his training.  It will be a challenge, but I´m sure that the Lord has prepared me for it.  I should meet him in about five hours.

As I said, I've been trying to be like Peter. I've been reading Jesus the Christ lately, and it draws a stark contrast of Peter before and after the resurrection of Christ.   Before his Resurrection, Peter was a good disciple that followed the commandments of Christ.  Naturally he had his faults, but we understand that he is a good disciple and missionary.  However, when Christ was arrested and brought before the high priest, He cowered in fear of punishment, and denied knowing Christ three times.  Upon recognizing his sin, he runs away weeping into sore repentance.

This changes though after the Resurrection.  We read in the book of acts that Peter received a cloven tongue and that he strait away went forth to proclaim the gospel to all in Jerusalem, fearlessly condemning them for the death of Christ.  The difference that we see here is that Peter received a gift from the Holy Ghost, and that afterwords he was able to overcome his weakness and undo the damage of his sins.

We likewise are able to do the same thing.  We read in the Book of Ether that if we humble ourselves before Christ he will make weak things become strong unto us.  We all have the ability to plead before the Master for strength and forgiveness that we can be better instruments in his hands.

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 17

Hola,

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

Before I say anything else though, I just want to send a shout out the the primary class of Sister Sorenson and say thanks for the awesome letters.  

As for the mission life, this week has been interesting.  We've taught a lot of people, extended a lot of commitments, and watched them all fall by the way side.  I guess that's just how it goes some weeks though.  The one thing that's interesting is that this may be the last time I'll write from this area.  We have transfers next week, and I've already had two transfers here.  I've heard that some missionaries can stay in one area for as long as four transfers, but I don't think that I'll stay here that long.  I would like to stay here another transfer though.  We have a lot of investigators that are progressing really well and I'd like to see them get baptized.

Also, everyone should learn to make sabiche, my favorite Mexican food after dogos.  They best way to describe it is to think of a mixture of pico de Gallo and sushi, or sometimes beef.  It's normally eaten with tortilla chips or hard tacos.  

As for why I've been trying to be like Melchizedek, I need to explain a little bit more about him from what the standard King James Bible tells us, and go to the Joseph Smith Translation.  For all of my non member friends, who don't understand what I mean by the Joseph Smith Translation(JST), a brief summary is as follows:

The LDS church, and it's members believe the Bible to be the word of God.  However, we believe that given how it is a compilation written originally in Aramaic or Greek and later into Latin before all of it's other languages, we recognize that there are inherent errors in it's translation, or even partial phrases that have been lost over the years.  In other words, think of a two thousand year game of telephone.  another way to remember this is that English has the world's largest vocabulary by about a billion words.  Not every word in English therefore has a direct translation, and several words in other languages have a double meaning in the English language.  For example, in Spanish, the word llave means key.  It also means faucet.  If I don't know the context of the word, I could mistranslated it.  And this mistranslation has a very different impact on what I want to say.  Given that the Bible was translated in several different languages before it was translated into English, we have a relatively large margin of error when it comes to an exact translation.

The JST is a compilation of biblical verses that had lost key phrases or meaning due to an incomplete translation or misinterpretation of the original texts, and helps to clarify the exact intention of what the author originally intended.  This translation was given to the Prophet Joseph Smith after the organization of the Church in 1820.  While we don't have a complete translation of the Bible from Smith, what we do have can help enlighten our understanding of the bible as we currently have it.

The point that I want to focus on today is an excerpt of the JST in the book of Genesis 14.  The text in the KJV says: 

18 And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God.

19 And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth:

20 And blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand. And he gave him tithes of all.

The complete excerpt from JST is much longer than this, and I won't share all of it on the basis that I only want to focus on a small part of it.  If anyone else wants to read the full excerpt, the JST is in the back of every LDS published KJV of the Bible or at LDS.org.  the part that I want to focus on is this:

25 And Melchizedek lifted up his voice and blessed Abram.

26 Now Melchizedek was a man of faith, who wrought righteousness; and when a child he feared God, and stopped the mouths of lions, and quenched the violence of fire.

27 And thus, having been approved of God, he was ordained an high priest after the order of the covenant which God made with Enoch,

28 It being after the order of the Son of God; which order came, not by man, nor the will of man; neither by father nor mother; neither by beginning of days nor end of years; but of God;

29 And it was delivered unto men by the calling of his own voice, according to his own will, unto as many as believed on his name.

30 For God having sworn unto Enoch and unto his seed with an oath by himself; that every one being ordained after this order and calling should have power, by faith, to break mountains, to divide the seas, to dry up waters, to turn them out of their course;

31 To put at defiance the armies of nations, to divide the earth, to break every band, to stand in the presence of God; to do all things according to his will, according to his command, subdue principalities and powers; and this by the will of the Son of God which was from before the foundation of the world.

32 And men having this faith, coming up unto this order of God, were translated and taken up into heaven.

33 And now, Melchizedek was a priest of this order; therefore he obtained peace in Salem, and was called the Prince of peace.

34 And his people wrought righteousness, and obtained heaven, and sought for the city of Enoch which God had before taken, separating it from the earth, having reserved it unto the latter days, or the end of the world;

The thing that I find fascinating is the way that the text emphasizes the power of the priesthood and how every worthy holder has been given the power to work miracles.  It's also caused me to think a lot about the priesthood especially because we had to teach about it in church yesterday.(one of the fun things about a small ward, the missionaries do everything).  But in the lesson manual, it explained how the priesthood has three main functions here on the earth.  The first is that it is by the power of the priesthood that missionary work is done.  The second is that it is used to administer the ordinances of salvation within the church such as baptism.  The third and final thing is that it is used to govern the kingdom of God on the earth.  All priesthood ordinances, blessings, and obligations fall under these three categories.  

What is fascinating, is when we further look into what this all means.  To better explain this, I'll use the offices of the priesthood to better show how and why this is important.

We'll start with the deacons.  When someone is ordained to the office of deacon, they are given the sacred responsibility to pass the sacrament every week as well as collect fast offerings from the congregation.  In other words, Deacons are called to assist in the governing of the kingdom of God.  Admittedly, this is only a small portion of administration, but it is a start of this third part of the offices of the priesthood.  The second office is that of teacher.  As a teacher, young men are assigned a home teaching assignment, and a companion to edify and teach the members of the church to word of god, and carry out the second function of the priesthood.  Then we have the priests, who are given power to both bless the sacrament and administer the ordinance of baptism, or in other words to administer the ordinances of salvation.  Upon the ordination of an Elder in the church, these responsibilities are magnified tenfold.  The title of Elder is given to all male full time missionaries that are actively teaching the gospel.  Elders also, as holders of the Melchizedek have the power to give blessing for the healing of the sick, and perform miracles in proportion to their faith.  Given that God is ruler of both man and all other inhabitants of the earth, every time that an elder uses his priesthood to give a blessing or perform a miracle, he is exercising his right to govern within the kingdom of God according to the power and authority God has given him through faith and obedience.  And finally, in addition to the power to baptize, Elders have the power to work as temple workers and administer the ordinances of salvation found there if they so choose to.  

In short, What I want to point out, is that the power that God gave to Enoch and Melchizedek is here on the earth today in the church.  I also want to point out how the principles that the priesthood are based on can be exercised in every member, not just males ordained to a priesthood office.

Sister missionaries are quite probably the most effective means the lord has for spreading the gospel.  Sorry guys if you felt differently, but it's true.  And the way that they are able to do so is by exercising the priesthood power to teach by the spirit.  Relief Society and young women's presidents have the authority to lead within there respective callings, and in the temple, women as well as men are able to administer in the ordinances of salvation.  

Because I'm running out of time, I'll choose to finish here.  

But before I close I want to invite everyone to do two things.  I want to invite everyone to either look for ways that the priesthood has blessed your life in the following week, or find a way to magnify your priesthood callings.  At the end of the week, I want for you all to write to me to share how this experiment went.  I'll follow through with the same challenge and tell you all how it goes next week

That's all for now

Elder Gooden