July 11, 2017

Well my companion elder yamada is from Japan and he is an interesting character, he gives the appearance of a vulnerable young boy from Japan. But in my short time serving with him, he has taught me a lot.
He can't talk to a lot of people because he is so shy and has a hard time speaking the language, but when he speaks people listen! Just to share one small story, we were out tracting  and we were setting a goal. He asked me, "elder massey how many people do you want to find?" I explained that the goal was to find one new investigator a day, so I said one new friend. He looked at me puzzled, and exclaimed
"One new friend!....we are tracting for two hours....I say three new friends!" I looked at him and agreed begrudgingly and asked him to say the prayer over these goals. He prayed and asked for the Lords power to be with us, and we went knocking doors. I followed his lead (he is a lot better at talking to people at doors than people on the street,
so tracting is really his thing) we knocked on two doors and same old same old, we get to the third door and ring the door bell and don't get a response. But I give it a good old the pound knock and a black man answers the door, elder yamada introduces himself and asks if he is religious or not. The man looks at us and says, "come in boys I
want to hear what you have to say". 

We walk in and sit down, he says "let me get my family real quick". So we wait and he brings in his wife and two young children. He then asks, what makes us so different, I explain the concept of the restoration; with prophets ,apostles, and revelation. He then told us he recently converted from Islam to Christianity and didn't understand why their were so many sects and
branches of Christianity and just wanted to find the right one. He asked us to come around on Friday and he was coming to church Sunday. 

We left the house with a Book of Mormon and a prayer, and when we were back on the pavement elder yamada looked to me and said. "Elder massey I counted 2 new investigators there.....let's go find one more". And with a blink of an eye I was no longer senior companion.

I've been studying a lot about Charity, and how love should be our motive. We should be following the commandments and doing the things of the Lord because we Love him, and not because we we love the blessings or the eternal blessings. But that's all I got 

July 3, 2017

This week we set some high goals as a district, this has been the first district i have had as a district leader that has experience, knows why they are here, and is motivated to do the Lords work. Also the ward here is extremely supportive, this makes my life a lot easier after these past few transfers. I have been pondering over the subject of putting on the whole armour of god. As we learn from Ephesians 6:14-17the armour is composed of the loins girt about with truth, the breastplate of righteousness, feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. These are pretty widely known to members of the church, so i thought how does this apply to me right now as a missionary. so i pondered and thought on it for a few days, then it hit me right before i went to sleep as i was thinking about the war chapters and the conflict between zerahemnah and Moroni and how both prepared for their first conflict. In Alma 43: 19-20 it says "...Moroni, had prepared his people with breastplates and with arm-shields, yea, and also shields to defend their heads, and also they were dressed with thick clothing—20 Now the army of Zerahemnah was not prepared with any such thing; they had only their swords and their cimeters, their bows and their arrows, their stones and their slings; and they were naked, save it were a skin which was girded about their loins;..." Moroni had prepared his people with a great defensive armour to protect vital parts of their bodies, while Zerahemnah had only prepared his people with great offensive tools and neglected to prepare his army with the defensive necessities.

 Let me draw a parallel on how all these things, Paul's parable armour of god and Moroni's and Zerahemnah's preparation for war, all come together in us as missionaries. The most obvious point is that Moroni had prepared his army put on the Armour of God, and they won the conflict through their righteous habits of living and their faith on the Lord Jesus Christ, and the lack of spiritual preparation on Zerahemnah's army living a life of the natural man. But they did prepare in one thing that i believe all missionaries prepare for, but mistakenly that is the only armour they put on. Like it says the Laminates had their "swords", which in Paul's parable translates to the word of God. Every missionary good or bad is prepared with word of god, and some missionaries are so prepared they feel like they are ready for a bible bash at any moment. But like it says in alma 43:20 "They had only their swords" or that could be translated "they had only [the word of God]". Many missionaries fail to put on the WHOLE defensive armour of god, like Moroni did for his army; and rather put on only the PARTIAL offensive armour of god, like Zerahemnah did with his army. 

The way that we do put on that armour is simply living the gospel, we of course cant live it if we do not know it so this does require diligent study of the gospel and then application. As missionaries we teach of enduring to the end, but some drop out of the mission field pretty suddenly when the going gets tough. It has been said that salvation was never a cheap experience, and if the only soul your brought to salvation on your mission was your own, Hallelujah. Missions are hard, but behind every gospel principle their is a promise that if you "come and follow christ" "ye shall have eternal life". "thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be a but a small moment" but they have come to pass. Or in other words they have come so that they may pass behind us. 

things get rough out here, as you well know. but i know the lord would rather have me here than anywhere else in the world. i love you all, and wish you the best continually pray for me, and that i might have the strength to carry on. i love you all

June 26, 2017

Well everyone I have moved areas once again, this is my fifth area in less than one year. I have been to 5 out of the 9 zones in the mission, so we are working our way up there! My new companions name is Elder Yamada, from Japan 🇯🇵; He is a funny guy, all day I am laughing with him. The best thing about this new area is that Elder O'Hare is my zone leader and even better he is in my district. My district is composed of the zone leaders, the sister training leaders,
and one normal companionship; in a district full of leaders you need to step up your leadership or they might just walk all over you. But I am happy with my new area and expecting great things from it.

I studied this week on a few things, focusing on pride and virtue. The one thing that they have in common is that these things are settled in your heart. If we take the poetic definition of ones heart, it being a center or our motivation, we can learn a little more on how to develop ones christlike attribute of virtue. Our motivations drive us to our
destinations, wither they be righteous or unrighteousness that is another thing. I have met many missionaries who are driven by pride, meaning they want to find new people to teach to count as a statistical number. These numbers gratify their pride and vain ambition. Virtue on the other hand, is a principle of cleanliness and healing power. If we have virtuous motivations, such as missionaries wanting to find people to teach to invite as many people to turn to Christ and make and keep covenants with him. These are the powerful
missionaries. Both missionaries may get the same out come, in helping change others lives through the gospel, but they themselves are not changed because of the lack of involvement of Christ. This is his work, and he will have it done his way, if not you might be left to kick against the pricks.

Anyways we have been working hard, we have a few people progressing towards a baptism. John is the most interesting one because he can't read or write, so he can't really bear testimony if the Book of Mormon which is a challenge. He's English so we don't understand what happened there.

Well I love each and everyone of you, thank you for your thoughtful and uplifting emails. Continue to endure on, because heaven knows I am. Love you all

June 20 2017

Well looking back on these two transfers I will say I learned a lot, probably more than I thought was possible, I can bear testimony that true learning happens in the field of struggle. Some of the many things I learned was charity. there was many times were a sore rebuking was just and would get the point across, maybe even make me feel better, but was not needed. Rather what was needed was "A soft answer" to "(turn) away wrath", this helped people know that rather
than me being their to manage them I was there to lift them and help them. But I think on the flip side of the coin I learned to speak the truth with what the mission rules were and how I felt about them quoting psalms 15: 32 He that refuseth instruction despiseth his own soul: but he that heareth reproof getteth understanding. I have never
been one to tell people they needed to do a better job, my mind set was always "this is your mission, waste it if you want and see what the Lord has in store for you". But I realized that is a selfish mindset, in Ezekiel 33:6it says  "But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the
sword come, and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman’s hand." My mind set was hurting them and me at the same time, so I learned to
be the watchmen for my fellow brother and sister. I think I also learned not to be so down on myself when things out of my control go wrong, because then I'm not useful when the going really gets tough. It's a gospel progression I guess, you think you know what you are doing but then you find out your wrong and you need to be better. But that's all she wrote guys.

June 12

This week I've learned a lot about myself and how to deal with stress. This came to my attention that I'm a person who gets very stressed out at zone conference when  president Stevens came in and gave me a hug and said "how is my super man doing", of course you can't give a half truth to your mission president so I honestly answered "I could be doing better president" while still in the comfort of his hug. And then he cut me to the heart with this one liner "how is your kryptonite of stress?". With that I was wrecked, I realized that I stress out a lot. Of course my district situation is more unique than most with everyone leaving this up coming week and not working anymore, but still i stress out a lot. Then the high council man who watches over our ward ,brother mace, who has become a good friend told me after putting away some chairs with him that I look like I've lost some weight. Basically calling me weak because I was struggling with some chairs, but then I realized it's true i must of lost 5kgs in these past couple weeks. So I decided to take it to the Lord, for my answers and I got my answers from two separate sources. The first is sacrament meeting where a less active Brother gibeke gave a talk about matthew 6:33 and said We all have needs physical, emotional, psychological. But we forget that we should look to the Lord for all our needs.  This really impacted me and made me want to really study out how I can call upon the Lord for help, obviously prayer; but I thought of working on something that I never really had a testimony of, which is fasting. Long story short I have never seen the blessings of fasting; mostly because the only time I truly had desire, real intent, and faith to fast was when we had a ward Fast when my dad was in the hospital and things really didn't turn out the way I expected them too (but then again when have they ever😂). So I thought I would study more up on it, I can honestly say I didn't learn any more doctrine on it than I already knew but something came to my mind as I was studying it in the topical guide. When ever fasting is referred to prayer is always included in it, and this thought came to my mind. "Of course we should always pray.....but we don't always pray to get something", that's when it all clicked. I have always fasted to attain something, and when I didn't receive the blessing I was fasting for I became discouraged. We are always taught that sometime the things we pray for are not the Lords will and we learn from the Bible dictionary that prayer is really just alining our will with the Fathers and I though "wouldn't that include fasting as well?"  So I prayed to know what to fast for, the Lord obviously doesn't want me to be stressing everyday and getting more grey hairs than I already have and I was to fast about my stress and a few other things.  I think that's when I really started to see miracles happen, when I really prayed and asked to know how to do the Lords will the Lords way rather than doing the Lords will my way. That's just something that I learned this week. 

But I love you all and wish you all the best. 

June 5, 2017

Spiritual thought:
This week I have centered my studies on leading in the saviors way. Some back story for this weeks study. We have had interviews with president and I was expressing my feelings on my district being quite difficult to remain a certain sense of order and mutual respect.
Because to be honest it felt like I was just becoming a single parent trying to put 4 kids to sleep every other night, in my fathers own words " it's like pulling teeth with them". As I was expressing this to President Stevens he stopped me and told me that in the interviews of my district there was a common theme of respect of me. This took me back a little bit because I didn't think they liked me little alone
respected me. So I thought how could I use this and build upon it to help my district sanctify themselves. So I have been studying in the Topical Guide about Leadership and listening to BYU talks about it. Some of my major take away safe this. To become a more Christ like leader you can not dictate or manage people, this will get the results you want but maybe not the best results possible. Like the Saviour, He invited through asking questions. When one had a problem His advice was always the same "Come
and follow me". The word "Come" is such an inviting word, I guess the opposite would be "get over here and follow me". To be a Christ like leader you need to allow people's agency to be exercised so growth will take place, allowing them to use the knowledge hey have at the time to solve the problem of the moment. Some leaders assume that "no
one can solve it with out me, that's why I am a leader", this
diminishes people and in the long run does not allow personal growth of the leader or the person needing the help. Because the leader knows how to do it and is not edified by doing it; and the person needing the help doesn't know how to do it, never ended up doing it and therefor never learned to do it, and is not edified. My favorite quote of my mission so far is "The Lords way isn't always going to be the
most efficient way, because it would allow people to grow". I know this is true, because if it was the most efficient way I would just find, teach the assigned lessons, baptise on the assigned date and go on my way. Both the investigators and myself would not be edified, it takes struggle to learn and good leaders realize that and help others learn through struggle. I wish this was beneficial for someone, but this is the results of my studies this week

Updates:
- I'm teaching this family from Ghana that has an interesting problem. The boys  Joel (8 yrs old) and Ceral(5 yrs old) read the Book of Mormon every day (about one column a day), and the mother Lidia reads it every day with out fail. They are working towards baptism and love
every bit about the gospel and eat up every doctrine we give them, but the husband who Lidia is separated from is against the church. Longstory short he doesn't believe we have the gift of tongues ( he is way Pentecostal), but said if his boys go to the Mormon church again he
would stop visiting his kids. To be honest that is pretty low, Lidia wants to come to church and believes it's true and is extremely fellowshipped by the ward, but her husband will stop visiting the boys
if they come to church. So that's my problem that I will have to solve this week.
- My district is still struggling with motivation and doesn't want to work, and it has been effecting my motivation as well. My zone leaders
offer my counsel just to keep me going, it is always helpful. My zone leader is elder sharp, he was my district leader in London and i would say he is a life long friend. He is from st. George so not too far to go and party with, but he is super enthusiastic and it lightens my
mood. But I don't know about every one else😂