Remember the (Elder) Gong

We had a member of the presidency of the 70 come and tour our mission. It was super good! We discussed so much things but my biggest take away was that we learn in layers. It is like the scripture in 2 Nephi 28:30. Here is a little analogy, when you are a freshman in high school you feel so mature. Then when you are a senior and you look at the freshman you think they are babies. I am sure that concept works when a parent looks at their child but the idea is the same. Over time we gain experiences as we go through trials or just learning things as we grow. I am pretty impatience to the whole growing process but I know that God will give me things when I need it.

Some notable things this week. I went on an exchange with the T-stat 2 Elders. That was pretty good but we just beat doors all day. Found a lady who has fainted before when the missionaries knocked last time ha! We have. A baptism coming up this Saturday and it is General Conference!! Man I am so stocked for that. Saturday is going to be so cool! Every get ready to be spiritually blasted from general conference and make sure to set goals on what the spirit tells you to do. 

We had a super spiritual fast and testimony meeting. I have been praying on how I can deepen my faith in Christ and man was I answered. There was like five testimonies in a row that brought tears to my eyes. People were testifying that Christ will always be with you no matter what. I have learned that to start with deepening your testimony of Christ you first can recognize what He did for you. I have so much gratitude that He gave his life so then I can repent and brake the chains of sin. I love that he taught me how to be happy in this life through his example. I read this story a couple of days ago and it didn’t hit me until yesterday how awesome it is. (The two pictures with the story of the cowboy) I can tell you that He is always with you even when you don’t think you deserve it or mad at him for the crap you go through. He just wants your heart and everything will work out the way it needs too.

I can’t remember anything else that happened this week so I will talk with y’all next week. Have a blessed week!

Love, Elder Q

 

 

Triple Threat

I have to give a shout out to our ward mission leader because he is so good! He has four boys (just like my family) and just moved in. He
works hard with us to do missionary work and man things go so well when you have someone that works just as hard as us to get the missionary effort going.

Other than that I went on two exchanges this week. I went down Monday night to Columbia and we had a great day Tuesday with Elder Persons! It was just raining all day and it was a bit cold. We rode around on bikes and tracted and found some people. We met a pretty cool blind guy. Elder Persons is a really good hard working missionary. Then right when I go back in Tuesday night we had more exchanges on
Wednesday. I had Elder Lytle for the morning tracting and then had the trio of elder Lytle and his trainee Elder Grover, by the way they are from Linden. We saw this awesome truck! Then I was with Elder Grover the rest of the night. I want to train so bad again! Things just happen
with new missionaries. We taught our baptismal date and the spirit was so strong! One of our members bore his testimony on the Book of Mormon and how he got it. Then another member bore his testimony on priesthood blessings. Tears were shed.

We also got to teach this new family that we found. They are a young couple who are not married but super open to the gospel. They both
grew up catholic and when we got done teaching about the apostasy. He said it made sense! I have never heard a catholic say that. We gave them the Book of Mormon and invited them to church. They were going to come but got sick. :( We did, however; get two investigators to sacrament and that was awesome! The lessons were perfect for both of them. Revelation through church attendance is a real thing. Oh and we had a good Zone conference this week. We won the golden plates (cleanest car)!  We did something no other missionaries have done. We rode up on a trailer! Man when we hit the parking lot everyone stopped and stared with mouths open..... ha!

Last part of the week we taught a mission preparation class with President Stone. He is our mission president and as always, it was super spiritual. We discussed for an hour about the why to come on a mission. Whatever gets you on a mission is good especially if it is based on the Savior. He said if you read the Book of Mormon then you will want to repent and you will have a desire to serve. I can tell you that is so true! You will find things that are not in line with what the Lord wants and you will change.

That is about it. Love y'all! Have a blessed week!

Plugged Back In

Best thing happened this Saturday! I went to the temple to do baptisms for the dead with a recent convert! He is from one of my old areas and since I was the one there who baptized him when he was converted, I was able to go to the temple with him. I got to dunk him like 13 times for his family's names. That is 13 more people who can accept the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is so cool to see the love the lord has for us and his perfect plan that he has set up.

I am now on Facebook and man is it weird. The first day was interesting because some of my friends from school were married but most of them are on missions. I have learned to stay away from the news feed because you could get distracted there so easily. What is really cool is the messenger. We have a zone group chat where if we have questions, concerns, helping investigators be baptized and announcements they go on there. It has been very effective so far! We have also been using Facebook at door approaches. While on a split with Fairview, I was with E​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​lder Ensign for the day. We tracted for about 1 1/2 hours and had major success in having people friend us. I thought it would be a lot more awkward asking to friend us then to ask for there number. We seriously were freaking out after every door because we are like, "it can't be this easy!" Well once we crossed to the other side of the street it went back to normal haha! Later that night we set up a messenger lesson with a guy and he became a new investigator! The lord is moving his work forward and giving us great tools to use.

We also have a new chapter in preach my gospel that I absolutely love! It replaces chapter 8: how do I use my time wisely? To "How do I fulfill my purpose". It goes through how to effectively set goals and plans for each investigator and it teaches you how to set goals for the rest of your life. I am pretty stoked about it! Other then that we did some service helping repair a shack/stable for the hurricane that is coming. Don't worry it will only be like a tropical storm here. This next week is going to be insane so be ready! Have a blessed
week!

Love, Elder Q

 

 

The Lord is in Charge

Ok, I have to start off with this miracle that happened to us on Saturday night. Saturday's have become the best days ever! I usually dread them because it is normally tracking all day but lately it has been lessons on lessons. Anyways, Saturday night we just got done with dinner and decided to go get our tires filled up. On the way over I pointed out a place where we could go tracting after we had gotten air in the tires. We went into this new town homes place and found some of the youth outside. We got out of the car and started talking with them and ended up talking for 2 hours! Ok, so the miracle was that during the conversation it got super spiritual as we discussed things about the second coming. We also discussed other topics about being the elect and other mind blowing things. The spirit was definitely teaching all of us and tears were shed. One of the youth commented that they just felt all of the spirit from EFY week in our one conversation. Two of the other youth said that we were an answer to prayers. The weird thing was that they felt the spirit so strong and I felt like it was normal. I am a bit nervous coming home and not feeling the spirit so strong all the time. We all learned something from this and we all become homies. We even got a referral out of it. I learned and felt that the second coming is close. We are repeating history from the Book of Mormon right before his first coming. Our country is ripening with iniquity so it has to be soon. I learned that I need to be more prepared and doing all I can so I do not falter in my testimony.

Our success this week has been awesome! We just got blessed with a baptismal date! She will be baptized on the 30th of September and missionaries have been working on her for years. Things just so happen that we came in at the right time. I have realized that about all the baptisms that I have been apart of. We just happen to be there at the right time. The scriptures are so true that we are finding those that have been prepared and willing to receive us. We should have another one set this week so pray for us.

We got hit by the hurricane from Houston. We got buckets of water! Like 5.5 inches of rain in one day! That is like half of what Utah gets in a year. Some streets were flooded and I witnessed an accident right in front of us. I got to call 911 for the first time too. The dude turned and slid right into the front of the car in front of us and totaled it. Thank goodness we didn't leave 5 seconds earlier from lunch. We also had district meeting in Fairview and that was sick! My favorite new place to eat is called "cook out" I might I written about it but it is so dang good!! Anyways, this week was awesome and pretty eventful. This next week will be a roller coaster ride and rumor is we may get to do some cool new proselyting stuff. Have a blessed week y'all!

Love, Elder Q