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😂

May 30

Yesterday was interviews and they held it at our chapel so we had to prep the chapel and I had to conduct the meeting until the zone leaders came, so our preparation day got moved to Tuesday so that's that. I hope no one was maimed yesterday due to this 

I talked with President and Sister Stevens and they both gave me some heavenly advice about leadership, priorities, and some personal advice. President Stevens is probably the most 'real' guy you will ever meet. 

This week I have been studying charity, and there are a few things that I really like about it. The thing about charity is that you can not fully explain it with out faith and hope, they are compound into one. If you focus you attention and efforts on improving one Christ like attribute the others will be effected as well. To summarise what i have been taught this week.  Faith is focused on the past, that Christ truly did suffer for our sins and perform the atonement that through him we can become clean. Hope is focused more on the future, that through our righteous living and faithful obedience of Christs Gospel we will attain exaltation and live with our Father again. Now charity, being the pure love of Christ, is focused on the present; because love can only truly be manifested through our present actions. These past couple of transfers my district has been a little 'righteous' at times. The sister not showing up to district meetings or leaving early and the elders not being as diligent as they could, this gave me a great opportunity to build my charity and therefore my faith and hope . i have learned there are three degrees of charity.

 The first degree of charity, and the lowest, is listening. Listening is probably the most important thing a missionary could do and also in my opinion the least anyone could do for someone else at any given time. Listening shows that you care enough to take in what someone is saying, but more importantly what they are feeling. We learn from elder bednar that listening is more than ears to hear, but eyes to see. some of us see but do not observe, not everything someone is feeling will be expressed in what they say. In preach my gospel it says   People  also  communicate  by the way they sit, their facial expressions, what they do with  their hands, their tone  of voice, and the movements of their eyes. Observe these unspoken messages; they can help   you understand the feelings of those yo u(serve). Also be aware of your own  body language. Send a message of interest and enthusiasm by listening sincerely.

We need to physically show we are listening, this will take effort on our part, but it will let them know that we truly care what they have to say and that their words are not wasted. To further manifest that we are listening we need to ask questions, to engage with them. So instead of someone dumping their emotions at your feet you are now in council with them and reasoning with them on what could and should be done. quoting preach my gospel again in says 

 When you feel that you understand what is being said,  make comments that show you understand, such as “So what you are saying is. Is that right?” or “If I understand, you are feeling that” When you are not sure if you understand, ask the person for clarification.

The second degree of charity is giving.This form of charity is probably the charity we all know quite well through watching the many superhero movies, this is to do service with no intent other than to 'go about doing good'  To quote the talk where i got the degrees of charity from it say's 'The second degree of charity involves the way we give to and seek to serve others. Charity in this sense is often associated with almsgiving, which can easily lead to a distorted understanding of what charity really means. The British have a phrase, “as cold as charity,” which they use to describe the heart and attitude of charity given in a way that is condescending or self-righteous.When we act with genuine charity, we seek to lift others up or to give them a boost, perhaps while we stay below.'  In preach my gospel it says During His mortal ministry, the Savior “took upon him the form of a servant” (Philippians 2:7). He went about “doing good” (Acts 10:38) and “preaching the gospel” (Matthew 4:23). As you follow this example, you will find those who will receive you.

Through service, you and those who are prepared for the restored gospel come together in a powerful, inspiring way. Your good works will help people recognize you as a (disciple) of God and will lead to opportunities to (share) the restored gospel. 

The third and celestial degree of glory is to care for and love others; Moroni put it best by stating 47 But charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him. To quote the talk i got these degrees from again it says There seems to be a progression from the easier to the more difficult among the three degrees of charity. We cannot hope to have genuine charity if we are not charitable as listeners and givers. Not surprisingly, cultivating the “pure love of Christ” involves taking steps. We do not simply develop such love instantly; for most of us, it will be a lifelong process. Ultimately, it is a gift of God. 

No matter the amount of goal and plan setting we have attaining charity will be in vain with out Christ atonement to not only giving us the redeeming power to over come our stumbling and failings in the development in our attribute of charity, but also the enabling power to push us through. To keep us going and give us the Hope needed and the power of faith required to develop this the most important attribute needed for exaltation. Because with out charity we are nothing, and we also know that charity never failith. I just want to leave my testimony with you that i know that I am imperfect, I know that i am no where near calling myself even mediocre, but i know that christs atonment will make up the difference. We dont need to be perfect, because that would take away our oppritunities to grow and their is only one who was and is perfect, and we shouted for joy when He accepted His calling as our Saviour and Redeemer. Christ is the reason we are here, why we live the way we live, and why we are able to see our families again. I leave this with you in His name, even jesus christ, amen.

River Grear Ouse

    

May 22, 2017

Spiritual thought: 

This week has been a though week, but it never got me down. 

I went on 3 exchanges this week ( 2 of them outside my area ) to help others and so the zone leaders could help me. I learned a lot from my exchanges and I wanted to share a little bit with you guys. 

I went on exchange with an older missionary who is going home in a few weeks, and he has never really excelled in some of the attributes that come with being a missionary; mainly being outgoing and talking with everyone in sight in hopes that the gospel message might be shared. He is more of a reserved character but very knowledgeable and a very bold teacher. 

So going on exchange with him in hopes I might be able to help him again (this hat been our second exchange and a lot of progression had happened since then, motivation is diminishing though). We had a pretty average day ( if there ever was one on a mission) when it came to the exchange evaluation. Hearing from the prophets that everyone has some specific knowledge that another will not have, I was honestly intrigued on what this missionaries biggest take away was from his mission. Since this was his last district leader exchange he was very open and honest, but before he answered he paused for a while and I could tell he was honestly pondering my heart felt question. He gave his answer more boldly than I would have expected, he said looking me in the eye " on my mission I've always seen people who had many strengths that I wish that I had, but I know that they will never have one thing - and that's my relationship with the Savior". I felt the spirit so strongly when he said that to me. 

It has always been a weakness of mine to look around and compare myself to others, to make final judgments on myself and demand perfection. I have always been my biggest critique. Which I think we all can be. But that was never the point of Jesus Christ's atonement , Jesus Christ was perfect so we didn't have to be. The atonement of Jesus Christ is to be applied to our hearts and minds so that we can become better today than we were yesterday, if that's all we can do that is enough. 

Perfection is a eternal journey, but with any journey it must always start with the first step. With this missionary I went on exchange with it was opening his mouth and talking with people, with me it might be to stop being so critical of myself, for others it might just be as simple as trying a little harder to be a little better. 

Funny moment: 

During zone call ( where the entire zone has a conference call) we were playing a game of what we wanted on this zone pizza. No one was paying attention so I said on my pizza I wanted pepperoni and bleach, and I would say only 4 companionships noticed and laughed the rest were clueless

Testimony building moment:

It was pouring rain and I just missed the bus to go to physical therapy, so I was gutted. But I pulled up my boot straps and talked to maybe not the first person I saw but the second and third and fourth. The Lord was then able to put prepared people in my path and we found people to teach 

My week

  Monday: 

I went on exchange with elder finnurud and we tracted for 2.5 hours while the other elders were at a dinner appointment, we talked pretty deeply about our personal relationship with Jesus Christ and mission culture 

Tuesday: 

We went to district meeting which the sisters decided not to come, that was frustrating. And we went on exchange with the zone leaders, I was with elder sharp and we went spiritual tracting. Praying often and following the spirit. 

Wednesday:

Probably one of the hardest days of the week. Missed my bus to physical therapy and it rained harder than it had in a decade in Bedford. But still being diligent we went out finding and found two new people 

Thursday:

When I went on exchange again with missionaries in my area, found like Dragons 

Friday: 

Non of our plans went through but we still went out and honestly can't remember 

Saturday:

Did weekly planning, a service project to help a Syrian family, and a DA appointment that ended quite abruptly because the service project was more of an old woman calling me and guilt tripping me to come last minute to the chapel to help. She was quite mean, but it was for a good cause 

Sunday:

We had a load of appointments, no one came to church because of various reasons, and call ins 

 

 

May 15, 2017

In summary my week has been full of ups and Downs. But to be honest I
have seen how the goals I have set between the Lord and myself have
really starting to be fulfilled. I really wanted to work on the
spiritual gift of discernment and connecting myself with heaven so
that when I open my mouth the spirit will fill it. I have been
striving to get up around 5:30to read what ever is in the approved
mission library wither it be Sunday school guidebooks or revelations
in context I have felt that as I treasure up the word the spirit fills
my mouth. The spirit speaks to every one differently because everyone
is different. The way I understand mathematical division and the way
others understand mathematical division is different, so if the way we
understand math is so different why would the spirit not also be
understood differently. The way the spirit communicates with me is if
I put diligent effort into preparing to receive it, wither it be
street contacting or spiritual thoughts in call ins it is the same. So
as I study so early in the morning I really get a lot from it. When it
came to missionary work ethic I had the mind set that I would just
wake up in the morning and work out really hard to keep my pre mission
body and leave the mission with the same body I came in with. One
quote came to my mind in my second transfer which was from the
infamous movie star and governor Arnold ( don't know how to spell his
last name) when he was making the transition from body builder to
actor. He explained that he took his original work ethic from 4 hours
at the gym and 2 hours of acting lesson and reversed it to 4 hours
acting lesson and 2 hours at the gym, and that he needed to work on
acting if he was to be an actor and not body building. So I took the
same thought process and applied it to missionary work. 3 hours of
study and 45 minutes of exercise instead of he opposite. I know the
Lord sees this and grants me light as I am obedient to Nephi's
admonition to
"Feast upon the words of Christ", in my eyes a feast takes a lot
longer than an hour of eating. It takes a three courses and taking
times away to digest and coming back for more. When you go to chuck a
Rama you don't go for a 30- 45 minute lunch break ( or at least i
don't), I go to give that owner a run for his money. The same applies
to us, we need to go out and give the adversary a run for his money as
we become more filled with the word of God. But there is a second
part, if we go to chuck a Rama and gorge ourselves over the feast and
then don't exercise and use all that food to energize our bodies in
some way. We will become fat and sluggish, the same applies with us.
If we study the scriptures for longer and longer periods of time and
then do nothing with that knowledge, we will become sluggish and
stagnant in our spiritual progression and become discouraged and stop
reading because we saw no results.
Well this is my small sermon, but I leave these with you in the name
of Jesus Christ amen
Sent from my iPad 

May 9, 2017

Today is P-day because we are in transfers week. The results came in last night, i will be staying in Bedford as district leader and elder cooper will be leaving to become a district leader in white chapel area in London. This is now my third companion to become a district leader after being companions with me; first Elder Kalabanko, then elder draper, now elder cooper. Maybe im just a trainer for future district leaders, who knows. But this week has been quite eventful, we have a few investigators progressing towards baptism. The first and second are the most solid, being a small family from africa. one of the members from our ward is from the same tribe as her so they have fellowshipped her well and now are BFF's, along with this family just moved in and the only people they know are from the church so definitly they will be coming to church. It is a single parent home, with Lidia the mother being the only one there for her three kids, so i have a small window look into how that must be. They need the gospel. The rest of our investigators are a little different, one was now an ex homeless man and he has a strong testimony of jesus christ but he needs some polishing. The next is a man who deals with same sex attraction, and he knows this is the church that will accept him the most. 

This up coming week i will have a few power house missionaries coming into the district. if my district was a dodge ball team, i think pound for pound we would be the strongest. We have elder finurude coming in and he is probably the only person i have literally been really intimidated by. In the MTC i was making some toast and just got done buttering it, and he put his hand on my shoulder and said "i like your toast, may i have it". It was the last piece of toast so i said, "of course not". It was in that moment when everyone gasped and zoomed in to what was going to happen next. He then laughed it of and put his arm around me, and we have been friends ever since. He is going to love his new area, rough and tough bedford district. 

-- 

Benji J. Massey

May 1, 2017

well i forgot my i pad at home so i will have to go off memory for this one. this week was a dozy. ive had two main stuggles this week stemmed from the same problem; first that my district has fallen into a spiritual slummber and the same with my ward. But i have seen many miracles as elder cooper and i have worked faithfully and diligently  Let me explain.

My district especially has been having problems with remembering their purpose as missionaries, they love going out and talking to people but not inviting people unto christ. They have been struggling with home sickness and with obedience, so when i call them on the phone they either dont answer, or if they do they really dont talk to me more just give me lip service. i went on exchange with one of the elders and during the evaluation i was bold and asked him why he had been coasting on the lords time, which led to an interesting conversation and thankfully our improvement. The sisters are a different story, they have been rationalizing everything they have been stuggling with. Which stops progression. I called the STL's to council with them and they asked me to do something ive never wanted to do for the sisters, they told be to chastise and reprove them with love. I can reprove elder's alright, but women in general i just dont like telling off. So i just had to buckle up and do it, and let me tell you it broke my heart for every second of it. i cant tell you how bad it hurt when i had to be bold with them. But it was taken well and improvement is on its way. 

My ward is more like a branch, about 85% of the ward is less active; And most live within about 5 miles of the church. so a lot of less active work to do, but the active members are mostly the issue with spirituality. We were talking about it in the ward council on how we can get members more active in the church, because most dont even answer questions in sunday school class. Its mostly just the elders answering because we dont want it to be awkward for our investigators. 

elder cooper and i have been finding like dragons, and we have been teaching a small family from africa. Lydia, Joel, syrial, and a baby girl who's name i cant spell.  Lydia is a single mother, and is stuck in the house with all her small children. They are all from Ghana, and we found her tracting in the thick of the rain. But this week has been the sweetest teaching them. we had a family scripture study with them, and little syrial and i read the book of mormon word by word together. That was the most spirtual lesson i had. The real big miracle is that some one from our ward, sister aquah, is from the same village and tribe as lydia so the speak twee together when they get together. i ask that you pray for this small family that they might progress. 

Funny moments:

Yesterday we were tracting and we were knocking on this door and we saw that people were in so we knocked and knocked and knocked. a tall man then answered and then said "i didnt answer because i wasnt interested" elder cooper then retorted "do you know who we are?" and he replied "no". he explained that we are representatives of the Lord Jesus Christ and then i asked how could you not open you door because you already knew you werent interested. That guy walked away with at least the knowledge that we literally did everything we could to get a book of mormon in that house. It is also a perfect summary of what english people are like. 

Miracles:

Elder cooper and i were tracting in heavy rain pour, on the edge of a second baptism ourselves and in sore need of a change of dry cloths. But we kept at it, and knocked a door next to a widow in our ward we just got done visiting. We were just knocking and when they opened the door we would share the prince of peace video, and this person opened the door and watched 30 seconds of it and yelled at us. She then looked at us and her heart was softened as she saw two drenched young men talking about christ in the rain. She took pitty on us invited us in and we taught her and her small family. That was lydia's family

 

    

April 24, 2017

I'm sorry you might get these emails on Tuesday, I wasn't around wifi
all day. But I send them anyways.
Sunday I think was the first day I got home sick in my life.  I
thought to myself I haven't talked to my mom in a while, and I haven't
seen her in a while, I actually got quite emotional about it. I don't
know what that means but I'm fine.
My district is t doing well, I'm doing almost everything in my power
to show love but also be firm. No one seems to listen. The elders took
a good old cat nap after church on Sunday and then went to a DA
appointment and wasted a day. The sisters strolled into their flat at
9:45 pm last night so I don't know what's up with that.
My companion and I are super tight, he loves Jacobs humor. Tell Jacob
to email me
I've learned to love the small things in life, I wish I cared more
about family in high school. I wouldn't have left the house with out
you guys.
My ward is probably the most dysfunctional ward I've ever been to, to
be honest I don't think the Lord will allow baptisms in this ward
because they don't even take care of the ones they have now.
I spent some of my birthday money on magic cards, sorry about that one
but my zone plays a lot of magic.
Be sure to take care or max mora for me, I love him like he is my own son.
I miss you mom, and I miss your bed. I will be back in a year or two


Sent from my iPad