Week 49

Hola Todos,

This week I've been trying to be like Jesus.  I'll get back to that point later though.  We had a lot of good things happen this week.  first of all, It's been crazy to try and have two areas in one.  We've just been visiting several investigators and their families all week long to try and figure out who really wants to progress.  That's been kind of interesting because a lot of what we've started to do is focus more on the people and not just thinking about getting people baptized.  With the mission boundaries getting ready, to change, everyone wants to get a hundred baptisms as a mission this month, so the pressure has been high.  My comp and I have been doing everything we can though to help all of our investigators to get to where they need to be so that they can take that important step.  In other news, we have a really big house.  We now have two fridges, two floors, a ton of extra space, and a cat that doesn't want to leave us alone.  With all of the extra space, we have decided to fill the house with pictures of Jesus, and dedicate a fridge to Mexican coke.  I may or may not finally start to gain weight.  We'll see how much coke we drink though.  

As I said though, I've been trying to be like Jesus this week.  This also once again has to do with what I've been doing in trying to search more for the needs of our investigators and teach them what they need to learn rather than just focus on getting them to church or accepting a baptismal date so that our numbers look good for our area come Sunday.  This has meant a lot of slower lessons, more promised blessings and connecting with the people, and a much stronger connection with the spirit.  This connection has had a profound impact on how I've felt towards my investigators.  I'm no longer looking at them as potential statistical reports, and more like people that need to feel the love of the savior.  I find that I'm trying to make my commitments fit there needs, rather than search for a way to make their needs fit my commitments.  Even though I know that this will end in baptism, we're working to make baptism the evidence that our investigators know that the church is true and that they have seen that in their lives.

That's all for now

Elder Gooden

Week 48

Hola Todos,

This week I've been trying to be like Abinadi, but I'll explain that later.  For starters, Who was excited about conference?  I know that I sure was.  WE saw a lot of big changes to the way that the church will be doing home and visiting teaching.  With this in mind, I want to re extend my previous invitation for everyone to find a less active member of the church and fellowship them. Help them to remember why they joined the church in the first place, and help them to feel welcome there again.

Now to get on with this week and what happened.  We focused on conference nearly every day.  When we found new people to teach, we invited them to conference.  When we went to see our other investigators, we invited them to conference.  When we ate with members, we invited them to conference with a question in mind, with the promise that it would be answered if they listened to the Spirit as they watched.  I hope that everyone got something special out of this session, as we got to sustain the newest prophet of the Lord.  I testify that President Russell M Nelson is the Lord's representative here on the earth, That the priesthood keys with the accompanying power of salvation are held by him, and that by listening to his council, we will be brought closer to the Lord.

Now, getting on to why I've been trying to be like Abenadi, in regards to his council about listening to the words of the prophets.  In Mosiah 15 we read: 

11 Behold I say unto you, that whosoever has heard the words of the prophets, yea, all the holy prophets who have prophesied concerning the coming of the Lord—I say unto you, that all those who have hearkened unto their words, and believed that the Lord would redeem his people, and have looked forward to that day for a remission of their sins, I say unto you, that these are his seed, or they are the heirs of the kingdom of God.

12 For these are they whose sins he has borne; these are they for whom he has died, to redeem them from their transgressions. And now, are they not his seed?

13 Yea, and are not the prophets, every one that has opened his mouth to prophesy, that has not fallen into transgression, I mean all the holy prophets ever since the world began? I say unto you that they are his seed.

14 And these are they who have published peace, who have brought good tidings of good, who have published salvation; and said unto Zion: Thy God reigneth!

15 And O how beautiful upon the mountains were their feet!

16 And again, how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of those that are still publishing peace!

17 And again, how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of those who shall hereafter publish peace, yea, from this time henceforth and forever!

Here we read an interesting promise that I love!  Firstly, by listening to the prophet, we become heirs to the kingdom of God.  This includes eternal families, exaltation, and every other blessing imaginable.  Secondly, it talks about an interesting promise that this conference spoke heavily about: The blessings of sharing the gospel.  In this particular verses, we read about how we become publishers of peace, and how beautiful upon the mountains become our feet, as we do so. (Imagine that this is a reference to the level of blessings and exaltation that we receive as a result of our efforts, and not a commentary of how clean our feet will be).  This past conference session, we heard a lot about how each of us, regardless of our callings or time in the church have the ability to share what we have learned, and help others come unto Christ.  

As a missionary, and especially this week, we have been focusing on helping people come to listen to a prophet's voice, and helping people draw closer to God.  We also share what we have learned, and how the gospel has changed our lives on a daily basis with everyone.  We can all be like Abinadi in this sense, and help others receive the blessings of the gospel be it through going on visits with the missionaries, temple and family history work, or visiting less active members of our wards.  We can all be saviors on Mount Zion.

J

ust for one last heads up, We had transfers this week, and I'm still in the same ward, but they've merged the area of the two sets of elders hear, so now I'm working with Elder Pepin, one of my friends from the MTC!  

That's all for now,

Elder Gooden

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 46

Hola todos,

This week as always went by super fast here in Obregon.  This week we had Zone conference, back to back exchanges, and a lot of walking.  As always, I learned a lot from zone conference and from my zone leaders during exchanges.  During the zone conference, we talked a lot about the promises of striving to work with the spirit, and the Sabbath.  As I've already written in several of my earlier letters, the Sabbath is extremely important.  it is the truest sign of conversion we have in our investigators, and is the best way for ourselves individually to draw closer to God.  However, I've already spoken on that topic extensively, and so I'll any further commentaries to what I've already written.

This week, even though I didn't write it at the start of my letter, I've been trying to be like Sister Myers.  During the zone conference, she taught us a really effective way to teach about the atonement, and how it relates to the Sacrament.  My favorite way to relate them that I've found is in John 6: 51-57: 

I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.

I'd love to get into why this is such a great scripture, and it's relation to the sabbath, but The Internet here got cut, and I lost a lot of time, so I'll just have to leave my letter for this week as it is. I'll try to give a better explanation next week.

That's all for now,

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 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

Week 25

Hola,

This week I've been trying to be like President Myres, more on that later though.  This week was in a word, long.  My first two weeks here were met with a lot of success.  We found in those two weeks, 31 new investigators, many of them had accepted the invitation to be baptized, and I thought, ya.  I'm an awesome missionary.  Give me another transfer or two here and I'll baptize the entire town!  Maybe my pride got to me a little bit, because this week we found hardly anyone to teach, all of the appointments with the progressing investigators fell, and it was hot all week long.  One of our investigators did get married though, so that´s always good.

On the bright side, my companion and I have started eating healthier and we've learned that it's possible to live off of about ten dollars a week for food.  Beans, tortillas, and eggs go a long way.  And then if we want to add a little bit of flavor we have tomato and onion to add with it.  

This doesn't mean that I've stopped enjoying the abundance of coke in this country.  On Saturday, in honor of my ability to chug water so quickly, my companion decided that I should chug a liter of coke.  If anyone knows what the world record is for that tell me.  Right now I can do it in 47 seconds.  With a bit of practice though, I bet I get I can get it down to about 15.  Dealing with carbonation though is a bit different than plain water.  

As I said, I've been trying to be like President Myers, or rather, the missionary that he wants me to be.  One of the things that he has tasked for every missionary to do is memorize the Living Christ and share it during lessons.  For those of you who don´t know, the Living Christ is a church document that was published seventeen years ago to commemorate the 2000th anniversary of the birth of Christ. Contained with in is a summary of his life, the meaning that it has for all of us, and the promise that one day He will return to rule and reign over the earth as it´s king.  The fun thing for me though, is that I had to learn it in Spanish.  Speaking the language is one thing.  Learning how to memorize something and to say it with meaning is another.  

I started back in August, when I still barely had enough command of the language to teach in the lessons, but now, as of this past Saturday, I've been able to memorize all of it.  Believe me though, it was one of the harder tings to do on my mission.  Especially when I had Spanish speaking companions that some times made fun of my pronunciation or on accident said another word.  There was one time I tried to say it and ended up saying that Christ died for our fishes instead of our sins.  At the end of it though, President Myers was right in saying that memorizing this sacred document would bring us closer to God and give us a better understanding of the sacrifice that our Savior made for all of us.

This week, I want to invite everyone to read the Living Christ and think for yourselves what the sacrifice of our Savior means for you personally.  Think about what his death and resurrection mean in your life, and pray to find our how you can improve that relationship and feel more of his loving influence in your life.

That's all for now

Elder Gooden

Week 24

This week I've been trying to be like Moroni, the son of Mormon.  More on that later though as always.  This has been a week full of interesting things, and I only have a little bit of time to explain all of it.  Some of the highlights include:

Nearly being hit by a drunk driver in the middle of the afternoon, JWs knocking on our door, being asked repeatedly if I support Trump´s politics, Our toilet got fixed in time for the fridge and shower to die, and our land lady decided that we should have our floors re tiled.  She might be my new favorite person in Mexico by the way.  The strangest thing though was when my companion and I realized that if only six people in the branch don't show up for church on Sunday, we become the presiding priesthood holders.

As for the week, my companion and I have been missionary superstars.  Our numbers for the past two weeks have been better than any other companionship in our district, including our district and zone leaders.  If we keep up the hard work, we'll have a ton of baptisms in no time.  I don´t want this to sound like I´m only worried about the numbers though.  We've really just been trying to do what we can for a few investigators, and their families keep showing up to the lessons.  I love small Mexican towns.

As for why I've been trying to be like Moroni, I've been focusing on the promise in Ether 12 that says that if we have a weakness, we can seek the help of the Lord, and if we go to him in faith and humility, he will make our weak things strong.  

Seeing as how I'm an American missionary with only five months here, I have an imperfect knowledge of the language, and I've inherently disliked talking to people for as long as I can remember, and I'm supposed to teach a new missionary how to do something I'm not fully sure how to do, I've had a lot of weaknesses to come to the Lord for help with.  And yet our progress here in Bamoa, and the improvement we've seen since I've gotten hear show that the Lord has been helping me out with this, and has been doing his work through me despite my weaknesses.  

As always, the Lord doesn't work in ways that we always expect. For example, with the language, I haven´t miraculously learned how to speak Spanish over night.  Rather, I've just had more promptings from the spirit telling me things like I should start to share a certain experience or that I should talk about this point of the lesson to help the someone understand better.  As a result, the people have grown to trust us, and feel that we are genuinely there to help them.  I might not have a single idea about what happened in a lesson, but the spirit does, and he can serve as an interpreter when I need to understand something.  

What I like most about this chapter though, is that afterwords, Moroni talks about all of the things that he remembers about the blessings of the Lord.  What I like about this though, is that we can all do that.  Almost everyone can remember a miracle that they saw in their lives, or a warm feeling they felt when they prayed with real intent.  Everyone that has been baptized has felt the truth of this gospel in their lives.  These are the things that we build testimonies on.  These are the small simple, sometimes scrutinized pieces of evidence that we all have as evidence of the truth that we have a loving father in heaven.  it's the evidence we have that Christ really did die for our sins and lives again.  So like Moroni, I invite everyone to remember.  Remember the things that you have built your testimony on.  Remember that this should be our faith in Christ and the hope that we have through his resurrection.  Most of all, remember that it is faith that builds miracles, not miracles that build faith.  

That´s all for now

Elder Gooden

Week 23

So this week I've been trying to be like Peter again.  I know it sounds like I've been trying to be like him a lot, but I find him to be relatable, and there is a lot to learn from his life.  I´m going to apologize now, by the way, to everyone that wrote me last week if I don´t get a chance to respond this week.  There is one cyber her and school is in session so we had to spend a lot of time waiting, and then the Internet crashed, or at least LDS mail.  As a result I'm pressed for time and praying that the Internet will last till I've finished writing.

My first week of training has been interesting.  For one, everyone hates Gringos and they don´t want to listen to missionaries.  Everyone has to admit though that we are the nicest people in the entire area though (as said by one of the Catholic ladies that is trying to "save our souls".  At the same time, I've been able to remember just how much Spanish I actually know and how great it feels to be the leader in a companionship.  It´s been a very strange balance of I know exactly what´s going on, I can do this, and we´re two lost American´s in the middle of Mexico.   

As I said at the start, I've been trying to be like Peter again, and for the same reason that I wrote about in my very first email. I've been called to walk on water.  Except this time, drowning was only a hypothetical idea. I was never in any real danger in the MTC; all of my investigators were really my teachers, at the end of the lessons, I could speak in English to everyone, and we never had to worry about getting lost.  Now, If I don´t know how to say something, it doesn't get said. If I can´t convey the spirit in my lessons, the investigators don't progress. And not only will they not progress, but I've got a companion that thinks that I have all of the answers.  As much as I want to say that I have them all, I don´t. Amazingly though, we've got some of the highest numbers in our district right now, so I think we´re doing something right.  The hope right now is just that we´ll be able to keep this up. First week is luck, second week´s dumb luck, and the third week is mastery. At least I think that practice strategy works in the mission.  

Needless to say though, with every week that I focus on Peter, it is a sign of my continual recognition of my dependence on my Savior each day.  Anyone that doubts that God lives and is a God of miracles can look at the fact that my comp and I are here in the heart of Mexico holding lessons and helping investigators progress.  That isn't our work.  This isn't dumb luck.  This is the Savior guiding His servants as they assist in his work to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.  

Like Peter, we all have the ability to receive Divine help and let ourselves be led to his "green pastures".  It´s like the hymn says, "I´ll go where you want me to go dear Lord... I´ll say what you want me to say... I´ll be what you want me to be."  

With that in mind, we can all do as Peter and walk on water.  We can all do what is seemingly impossible, but we have to surrender our own will to do it.  We have to do as Peter did and leave our nets behind to follow him.  This is not an easy thing, and we don´t get to pick one day to do it and another day not to.  It´s an all or nothing deal.  And the result is a lasting, permanent change in character and relationship with God.  

So my invitation this week is to work on building that relationship. One of my older companions once asked me, If I was in Peter´s shoes, and Christ asked me, "Do you love me more than all these?"  and then he asked me a second time, and then he asked me a third time, with his loving but knowing eyes staring strait into your soul, what would your answer be?  Could you answer yes to all three times?  Would you perhaps doubt after the second or third time?  Would you honestly say no, that you loved him, but you didn't want to give up your biggest addictions or sins?  

I´m not going to say how I answered this question, and I don´t expect anyone to tell me their's either.  Just ponder the situation in your mind.  Try to imagine the Savior sitting in front of you asking the same question, and evaluate how your relationship with him is based off of how you feel that goes.

That´s all for now

Elder Gooden

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