Monday, August 29, 2011
Hello to all!
Another great week. things are just flying by here, I am loving my new area in Aregua A. Elder Patterson and I are doing fantastic together, teaching SO many lessons. Like I said last week, I sure have a great testimony of hard work and good animo. All is well.
We are teaching a lot of people right now. Our zone has a goal of 4 baptisms for each companionship in the zone for September. It is a pretty big goal, but we are working hard to achieve it. We are teaching a man named Hugo, who the missionaries have been teaching for months, but has always been really scared to be baptized. We had a really spiritual lesson on the Restoration, and he is getting baptized this Sat.!!! I am really excited, he is a great guy and has a ton of support. Its always a blessing to see the changes in people and their desires to follow the Savior by being baptized.
On Sat. night, we had to go into Luque as a zone for a meeting with a guy in the Stake to talk about missionary work. While we were waiting there, I look up and see Christian walk in! It was soooo awesome to talk to him, he was there for the stake priesthood thing, and showed up a little early. He is great. Then, a few minutes later, Cristhian walks in...double bonus. So I got to talk to them for a few minutes, and they are doing great! Christian (the 20 year old one) has been going to institute, stake choir, going out on divisions with the missionaries, and even missionary prep, he is working hard to get ready to go on a mission. Cristhian is doing great, also doing visits with the missionaries,and him and Nelida are feeding the missionaries on Sundays!
Then on Sunday, we went to Stake Conference. I was welcomed there by tons of great friends from Bella Vista, my old area (we are in the same stake). It was so cool. No offense at all to my home ward in Utah, cuz I love them, but I felt like I was going "back home" to my home ward there. I was there for so long, and gained so many friendships. In stake conf., both Cristhian and Christian were sustained to receive the Melchizedek Priesthood, and they stood up in front of the 1000plus people. Pres. y Hna. Madariaga both talked, along with other stake leaders. Then after the conference, I was able to participate in both of them receiving the Melchizedek Priesthood in a little room in the stake center, even in the circle when Christian. I was hit with an overwhelming feeling of joy, gratitude, and love. I remember how great it felt when they were baptized, but all that magnified by a million seeing them receive the priesthood. I cant even imagine how great it will be when they all enter into the temple. They are some of the most incredible people I will ever know in my life, and I can't explain my gratitude for being able to see those changes made in their lives.
I am so thankful for the restored gospel in my life. I am thankful that the priesthood keys were restored through Joseph Smith to bless us and to help us receive saving ordinances, which are possible only through the priesthood. It was an awesome week, its been cool to look back and see the great things that have already happened in the mission. And, to be honest, it just keeps getting better and better. Love you guys at home! Keep me and the people here in your prayers.
Until next week,
Elder Babcock
ps. happy bday ash!
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Monday, August 29, 2011
Changed to Aregua A! (but still in Luque)
Monday, August 21, 2011
Hello to all!
So, the biggest and craziest news of the week was that when we received changes last Monday, my companion Elder Hatch got called to be a trainer in Laurelty, and so I got changed to a new area. Its crazy to think that I was in Bella Vista for 6 months, and Laurelty for 6 weeks. I was a little sad because we had some great investigators that were at the point of being baptized, and after a hard 6 weeks of work, I was changed. I loved Laurelty, learned a lot, and know that the Lord needed me in another place...and that place would be Aregua A. My companion is Elder Patterson from Canada, and he is awesome. He just recently completed a year in the mission, and so its been great working with somebody pretty new as well. Right of the bat we gained a great friendship and things got off great. I am in the ward in Aregua, the same ward where Elder Colligan started, which is pretty awesome. He was in a different part of Aregua, but its been cool to tell ward members about our friendship before the mission, and the people here really loved him.
On Tuesday we went around and said goodbye to all the great people I had gotten to know in my short time in Laurelty, and it was sad to say goodbye. There are some great people there, I will make sure to send pictures next week because i forgot my camera. On Wednesday, we went into Asuncion for changes, and right from the start Elder Patterson went out and taught 10 lessons in our first day! We teach really well together, and have good chemistry working with each other. The change before, there were a bunch of weird things that happened in Aregua, so we are basically reopening the area and starting from scratch. We brought a few investigators church and have a few people progressing towards baptism in September.
My companion and I were talking, and we realized that because of our great attitudes and sheer hard work, we saw more success in one week in terms of numbers than either of us have realized in our missions. It isn't that we hadn't been working hard before, but it was our positivity when approaching houses and lessons. I have a really strong testimony on the power of a strong, unified companionship, and I feel like we will do many great things in this great area.
I had a really different week, with changes and all, but I am loving the mission more than ever (I feel like I say that a lot, but its true). It feels so good to see the Spirit working through us, and to see the changes my Paraguayan brothers and sisters start to make in their humble lives. I love missionary work, and even though things crazy happen in the mission (like being changed after being in an area for a short time), I know they happen for a reason. I know that Jesus Christ is at the head of missionary work, and the Church itself. Its a great day to be alive and to be in the world in these latter-days.
Since I am still in Luque (as in the Luque zone), we have stake conference this next Sunday. And, Christian and Cristhian, who were baptized with me in Bella Vista, will be receiving the Melchizedek (?? I never wanted to admit this, but Spanish is killing my English memory) Priesthood, and I got changed back into the same stake, so I will be able to see them there. And they don't know I will be there, so its going to be an awesome surprise. I am really excited.
Well, thanks for everything, keep me and my companion in your prayers and the people here. Love you guys!
Until next week!
Elder Babcock
Hello to all!
So, the biggest and craziest news of the week was that when we received changes last Monday, my companion Elder Hatch got called to be a trainer in Laurelty, and so I got changed to a new area. Its crazy to think that I was in Bella Vista for 6 months, and Laurelty for 6 weeks. I was a little sad because we had some great investigators that were at the point of being baptized, and after a hard 6 weeks of work, I was changed. I loved Laurelty, learned a lot, and know that the Lord needed me in another place...and that place would be Aregua A. My companion is Elder Patterson from Canada, and he is awesome. He just recently completed a year in the mission, and so its been great working with somebody pretty new as well. Right of the bat we gained a great friendship and things got off great. I am in the ward in Aregua, the same ward where Elder Colligan started, which is pretty awesome. He was in a different part of Aregua, but its been cool to tell ward members about our friendship before the mission, and the people here really loved him.
On Tuesday we went around and said goodbye to all the great people I had gotten to know in my short time in Laurelty, and it was sad to say goodbye. There are some great people there, I will make sure to send pictures next week because i forgot my camera. On Wednesday, we went into Asuncion for changes, and right from the start Elder Patterson went out and taught 10 lessons in our first day! We teach really well together, and have good chemistry working with each other. The change before, there were a bunch of weird things that happened in Aregua, so we are basically reopening the area and starting from scratch. We brought a few investigators church and have a few people progressing towards baptism in September.
My companion and I were talking, and we realized that because of our great attitudes and sheer hard work, we saw more success in one week in terms of numbers than either of us have realized in our missions. It isn't that we hadn't been working hard before, but it was our positivity when approaching houses and lessons. I have a really strong testimony on the power of a strong, unified companionship, and I feel like we will do many great things in this great area.
I had a really different week, with changes and all, but I am loving the mission more than ever (I feel like I say that a lot, but its true). It feels so good to see the Spirit working through us, and to see the changes my Paraguayan brothers and sisters start to make in their humble lives. I love missionary work, and even though things crazy happen in the mission (like being changed after being in an area for a short time), I know they happen for a reason. I know that Jesus Christ is at the head of missionary work, and the Church itself. Its a great day to be alive and to be in the world in these latter-days.
Since I am still in Luque (as in the Luque zone), we have stake conference this next Sunday. And, Christian and Cristhian, who were baptized with me in Bella Vista, will be receiving the Melchizedek (?? I never wanted to admit this, but Spanish is killing my English memory) Priesthood, and I got changed back into the same stake, so I will be able to see them there. And they don't know I will be there, so its going to be an awesome surprise. I am really excited.
Well, thanks for everything, keep me and my companion in your prayers and the people here. Love you guys!
Until next week!
Elder Babcock
Sunday, August 28, 2011
You want us to teach your family?
8/22/11
Hi
This week was good. It seems like I start all my emails off like that.... It’s like how mom would always ask me about my day and all I could think of was good. But it’s the truth. It was not a bad week, but it wasn’t a extraordinarily amazing week, it was just good. Good is a good word. Me and my companion have been getting along well this week. I now think I know why we stayed together for 6 more weeks. I have really worked on changing my attitude towards him and the work and I realized that a lot of the problems came from my own negativity. Humans are really funny in that they always think, ok once I get a new companion, life will be good. But then they get a new companion and they find another problem like ok, now, once I get used to this area, life will be good. And they keep doing this until uh-oh! They´re dead. There is a sweet quote by the Buddha that says: There is no way to happiness, happiness is the way. And it’s true. Once you make the choice: ok screw it, I’m gunna be happy with where I am at now, you suddenly realize, hey life is way better. But, it is super hard to do all the time and I am still working on it.
Finnish keyboard has (öä) and also a little swedish (å) but nobody likes the å. Little fun fact: Finland has two national languages, Finnish and Swedish, and all the street signs are in both. Now you know!
We are teaching this Russian with a cute Asian baby that I think I have mentioned before and it is all going well. Hopefully things will work out for her baptism in 2 weeks. The new Mission Prez wants the missionaries to find families and it will be good to get a mother and child. Because the mother and child reunion is only a motion away.... No, but seriously. We have also found 2 other families who we are going to teach this next week. They both have young kids and we are really excited to meet with them. One of the families we met while tracting... On a mission you deal with a lot of rejection and sometimes when people say yes you don’t know how to handle it. This is how I felt while tracting into this family. They said they were interested in learning more and in my head my eyebrows raised and I was like: "Wait?!? Really...? You mean, your NOT a crazy person and you actually want us to teach you and your family. Woooow. Ok. Um. I don’t really know what to do, I’ve never really gotten this far before...." Of course this is a slight exaggeration, but oftentimes I really do feel so thankful and I can’t really express it well enough and I end up saying Oh... thank you so much.... over and over. It is really important to not get in a rut and to have faith in finding people, because you never know who is prepared to accept the gospel.
Winter is coming. It is still warm, but getting cooler. I miss you all. Be safe. Those of you starting school (haha suckers...), work hard.
Love you all—Vanhin John Lythgoe Merkley
Shaun's Update
Wow. This week creeped by, I think it was the bad feelings. Everything started out really well this week, I had more of a desire to learn and understand who really is my compañero. His name is Elder Calva, and it’s taken me along time to get to know him. It seems like every question I ask him I get a "well why do you want to know that" answer. But I was determined. He is twenty years old, has two older brothers and two younger sisters. He talks really slow and tries to be really spiritual. The truth is it’s a great thing to do, but for me when someone is talking softly, slowly and with big silences, I get bored. So were looking for a balance. His favorite music is metal Gothic, when asking if that was the style where they painted their nails black and used mascara... he responded, "I didn’t use mascara" haha. What an adventure. After a few days of contention, we decided something needed to be done. After two hours of talking... and when I say talking I mean heavy talking, we resolved things for a lil. Figured out that when someone does something to him, his first thought was revenge. I’m crazy grateful for a class I took in high school, Marriage and financial literacy. I’ve learned to communicate in definitely different situations. What a blessing. I’ve also learned the power of prayer in communicating and overcoming difficult situations. At times in our discussion when things got really hard for me, I was able to leave the room, kneel down and say a prayer, and ideas come up on what I could do better. A great resource and definitely useful.
So now everything is all good, kinda, and we're working to further the work in our area. Mainly contacting and disappointment, commitments and broken commitments, and invitations and rejection. Awe goodness it’s great to be a missionary. But even with all the rejection, there’s nothing I’d rather be doing. Watching someone offer their first humble prayer, and seeing the gospel and how it’s helped so many people.
I had a dream this week mom, that we were doing some sort of activity, and after when saying goodbye we hugged and yeah just wanted to tell you that, and that I love you.
Thanks for everything! Love you
Elder Rhodes
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Well, I had another good one....
Monday, August 15, 2011
Hello to all!
Well, I had another good one, they seem to always get better and better, and for a reason! my trainer Elder Olson completed his two years, and went home this last week. I was able to talk to him for a little while and say goodbye, he gave me a ton of great advice. I love him so much, he has been such a great example for me, and I have been truly blessed to have a great trainer, example, and friend. All you ladies out there, look him up! haha but seriously, after President Monson's talk he gave in Priesthood session, you will realize the importance of getting married quickly after the mission, so help him out.
I had another funny experience, I think this area is just full of them. We were walking down the street and I noticed this guy standing by his hammock, so we started walking there to try and clap his house and contact him... he quickly went and laid down in his hammock and closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep. We knew that he was of course awake so we kept clapping trying to get him to talk to us, but he kept his character and kept "sleeping". It is funny to see how fearful people are of two 19-20 year old American nerdy boys.
Unfortunately I don't have too much time this week, but I wanted to share an experience so that you guys can learn from it as well, and try not to make the same mistake. We took an investigator to church, who is progressing well, and is planning on getting baptized the 26 of Aug. She is different, and has a pretty strong personality, but is great and has already gained a testimony of the church and its
doctrine. However, during Sunday school class, the teacher also has a strong personality and started the class off with a question, and then the class discussed the question. As the teacher started to move on to a new topic, our investigator asks the teacher "So what was the answer to the question?" Then the teacher says "I already gave it, you didn't listen!" (in a really degrading tone). So after church our investigator was a little bugged about that, and seemed a little down...
The reason I share this with you is so that you guys don't make the same mistake. If there are people in your ward working on gaining, or regaining a testimony of this church, do all that you can to help them and make them feel included and loved at church. It was really frustrating, because she now feels a little different about the members, and that they are "just like the rest of the world." Today I got a letter from ....Bush, and he included a quote that I wanted to share from his letter.
"Last week at the MTC, Elder Merrill J. Bateman, emeritus General Authority, spoke and referred to Latter-day Saints being the Lord’s chosen people—chosen to do His work, teach His gospel, and minister to His children all over the world. And also chosen/blessed to have the gospel and all its blessings available to us in accordance with our faithfulness" As members of the Lords church, we are His chosen people. Let us live up to our potentials, and strive to be better members, day by day. Be good examples for those who are struggling with their testimonies! I am loving the mission more and more as the time flies by (almost 9 months now!). Keep me and my companion in your prayers. P.S. we have changes this week, I think my comp and I will stay together, but I will let you know next week!
Elder Babcock
Hello to all!
Well, I had another good one, they seem to always get better and better, and for a reason! my trainer Elder Olson completed his two years, and went home this last week. I was able to talk to him for a little while and say goodbye, he gave me a ton of great advice. I love him so much, he has been such a great example for me, and I have been truly blessed to have a great trainer, example, and friend. All you ladies out there, look him up! haha but seriously, after President Monson's talk he gave in Priesthood session, you will realize the importance of getting married quickly after the mission, so help him out.
I had another funny experience, I think this area is just full of them. We were walking down the street and I noticed this guy standing by his hammock, so we started walking there to try and clap his house and contact him... he quickly went and laid down in his hammock and closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep. We knew that he was of course awake so we kept clapping trying to get him to talk to us, but he kept his character and kept "sleeping". It is funny to see how fearful people are of two 19-20 year old American nerdy boys.
Unfortunately I don't have too much time this week, but I wanted to share an experience so that you guys can learn from it as well, and try not to make the same mistake. We took an investigator to church, who is progressing well, and is planning on getting baptized the 26 of Aug. She is different, and has a pretty strong personality, but is great and has already gained a testimony of the church and its
doctrine. However, during Sunday school class, the teacher also has a strong personality and started the class off with a question, and then the class discussed the question. As the teacher started to move on to a new topic, our investigator asks the teacher "So what was the answer to the question?" Then the teacher says "I already gave it, you didn't listen!" (in a really degrading tone). So after church our investigator was a little bugged about that, and seemed a little down...
The reason I share this with you is so that you guys don't make the same mistake. If there are people in your ward working on gaining, or regaining a testimony of this church, do all that you can to help them and make them feel included and loved at church. It was really frustrating, because she now feels a little different about the members, and that they are "just like the rest of the world." Today I got a letter from ....Bush, and he included a quote that I wanted to share from his letter.
"Last week at the MTC, Elder Merrill J. Bateman, emeritus General Authority, spoke and referred to Latter-day Saints being the Lord’s chosen people—chosen to do His work, teach His gospel, and minister to His children all over the world. And also chosen/blessed to have the gospel and all its blessings available to us in accordance with our faithfulness" As members of the Lords church, we are His chosen people. Let us live up to our potentials, and strive to be better members, day by day. Be good examples for those who are struggling with their testimonies! I am loving the mission more and more as the time flies by (almost 9 months now!). Keep me and my companion in your prayers. P.S. we have changes this week, I think my comp and I will stay together, but I will let you know next week!
Elder Babcock
Prayer and less actives
Hey all you family and friends.
We got some new investigators with a lot of potential, but mostly we met with less actives. Here in Neitsytpolku (the downtown area of Helsinki) we have 300 members in our ward, but only 70 active. It is very interesting because the culture here is a lot less outgoing than in the U.S. People do not randomly walk up to new faces and introduce themselves, which is a problem when you bring a less active or an investigator to church. I want to put in a missionary plug here. When you see a new face at church, go and say hi to them. It helps them feel welcome and a lot more comfortable. It is really frustrating to work so hard to get someone to church, and when they get there, nobody notices them. Within the church we need to start viewing church as a place to help other people who may be having a hard time instead of a boring place we go to take a nap every week. Like so many other things in life, if we start focusing on what other people need, and stop thinking about what we get out of the deal, we do a lot more good and have a better time doing it. Wow. I just got missionary mode up in your face right there.
We had a mini missionary this week. He was here for only 1 week and is 15 years old and really a cool and funny kid. He reminded me of one of my bros little friends so I got along great with him and teased and wrestled and had a great time. I taught him a lot of slang words in English and also the various ways to say "fart" (Ya, sorry mom and dad I’m still pretty dang immature.) In his first teach with us we set a baptismal date with this really nice Russian lady who has the cutest Asian baby I have ever seen. She also came to church this Sunday and I distracted the baby with my keys all throughout sacrament meeting so she could listen. It was a great day at church because she came a little late, and I was worried. But the opening song was "Don’t forget to pray" and I was like, ok ok, I will pray. So I started praying and saying please help her come but if she doesn’t, then help us know how to react so that she will come. And then I looked up and she was walking in with her baby. It was humbling because sometimes I feel like the "weird super missionary-type" when I do that kind of stuff, but it was a pretty cool experience.
Love you all.
Vanhin Merkley
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)