The Pressure

Hey guys,

So this week was good. As most of you know I share my area with my companion and 2 other Elders. They happen to the be the APs and I love them to death. The problem is that planning for two groups every day and working with other missionaries every night is kind of difficult. 

One thing you learn as a missionary is how to work with a companion. Usually after every transfer when you get a new companion it takes a week or so to tune in your teaching skills so you can support each other where it is needed. 

Here, we are always changing so it feels almost like every night you have to change the way you teach so that you support each other and compliment each other well. 

The other part is the APs leave a lot for things with President and it is just us two which has its pros but the cons is a lot of times we have a lot more appointments than we can handle. We have all been trying really hard to make the most of the time that we have. 

As a missionary I have learned a lot about pressure. In life people always feel pressured for some reason. Whether it is to be a good parent or look nice or be fit or do something well it is all around us. As a missionary it is not much different except for there aren't very many variations. 

Sometimes you teach someone and they are so ready and willing to change and then for some reason they stop wanting to listen or they start breaking a certain commandment or don't want to come to church anymore. And you feel bad sometimes. You ask yourself whether or not there was something that you could have said or done to allow them to make other decisions. 

As I was thinking about some of these things (not in a depressed sense more of like what can I do better type of thing) I ran into a scripture that I had not read in a while. It is in Alma 26:27. It talks about how their hearts were depressed and they were about to turn back and the Lord comforted them and said go back to your brethren that are in the land of Nephi and BEAR WITH PATIENCE THINE AFFLICTIONS I will give unto you success. 

I hope that you can remember those comforting words. When life has come back around kicked you in the head or knocked you down and you just wanna throw your hands up and give up remember: God promises you success if you just go and try again and the punches arent gonna hurt anymore. You will be able to turn everything around and make it a success. This is not only a promise from me but it is a promise from  God and Heavenly Father. Please remember these things. 

Anyways, that is a message I just felt prompted to give. Because in reality this week a lot of good things happened in our area. 

D is no longer on our radar. He cant stop drinking. He literally cannot leave it behind. That makes me sad but his time will come. 

J and S- They are a couple that live together that aren't married but J was an investigator a long time ago and now he wants to be baptized and this week we set a marriage date for them! 

LD - She is a younger girl that lives in a part member family. She is really starting to progress and her mom is a member which is really nice. 

M E - She is a lady that we taught about 1 1/2 months ago and she pretty much just gave us a big no. But I got a call on my phone Tuesday morning and there was a lady asking me if I knew a M E. I replied yes but wanted to know why. She explained that she had found a Cedula (it is like the Colombian equivalent of a drivers license but they use them a lit more here) and that the only form of contact she had found with these things was a little card with my number on it. 

I had given her a light the world card in December and put my number on it in case she changed her mind about listening to us. Apparently she had put it with her cedula. 

We stopped by her house later that night and explained what had happened and why and she was very grateful and we asked if we could share a quick message with her. She let us in and then we had a very spiritual lesson where she explained all her family issues and how she felt far away from God. Since then we have taught her 2 more times and she is just loving it. All because a silly little piece of paper that we decided to give to her. 

Na - Her best friend is a member and the daughter of a very great member couple and she already expressed to us her desire to get baptized and now it is just a wait to give her the lessons. 

So that is the progress with my investigators. I am some what ready for transfers. Buying these plane tickets was terrible because there were a couple missionaries that live in the middle of no where. Hermana Huayta lives in a legit village in Bolivia. Hermana Diaz lives on an island in Chile. I just hope it all works out. 

I have not gotten Grandmas package yet. I am very ready for it though! 

I hope Ty and Dyl are happy. I saw a lot of pictures and videos and it makes me happy to see them happy!

By the way Alex is the kid that came to our house a couple of times that didn't go to Middleton that was really good. 

Anyways that is what I have! I love you guys a ton! Be safe! 

Con amor,

I Taught Them Black Magic

Hey Family and Friends,

                Weeks are just flying by! You always hear missionaries talking about how the time just flies while you're on a mission and then you get there and you feel very deceived. Then you start feeling it a bit too and you realize that time does go by super fast.

         

       We had our interviews this week with President and Sister Whitesides. It is different in the office. We are around each other all the time so they know everything that goes on.

                The interview is more like just getting to know each other better and making sure we don’t have any issues. We usually laugh a lot in my interview and just take a couple minutes to relax.

                I had to ask if there was a way that I could do my job better and he said no and said that he feels bad because when there is a problem that comes up it always lands in my hands. I get phone calls all the time from people that say they just talked to President about something and that he gave them my number to call.

                I have been reading a lot in Heleman lately. Heleman is all about the changes in the judgement seat and the Gadianton robbers. It is also the book where the Nephites start to be really wicked. One thing I noticed was that it mentions how God blessed them with all their riches and they still became prideful and turned away from him.

                Never think that you ever earned anything alone. Nothing we have in life is ONLY through our own merits. God helps us in every step we take but he never makes us take the first one he just is always there to help up us with the last one.

                We had 2 family home evenings this week. The first was great. We taught at a members house and they invited some neighbors over. It was a total of 3 neighbors and one was from Venezuela which is always a good sign.

                We shared a quick message about the importance of always moving forward (2 Nephi 31:20) If you are moving forward then Christ is with you. If you aren’t doing anything with your life he is not. It is that simple. We played a game called white magic that I will show you guys when I get home. They all loved it.  Then we had English classes and that was good. Only 2 people came this week.

                Then we had another family home evening with the Bishop and his family. No investigators came but it was a good chance to get to know the members and gain their trust. They knew the white magic game, so I showed them our black magic game. They loved it a ton. They had never seen it before so they were super frustrated they couldn’t figure it out.

                So Tyson is coming home on Monday? I didn’t know the date had come up so 

soon. That is really crazy.

                As for my companions and the office staff we are all still the same. There is a chance that one of them might leave at transfers though but we won't know until then. I had to deal with a huge itinerary problem this week. A sister wanted to go home to a country she didn’t have documents to because her parents are there but I am not allowed to send a missionary I am in charge of to a country that they can't stay in so her family is like super stressing and talking to me every five minutes. 

                Anyways that was my week. Love you guys!

Con Amor,

I Am Not Going Anywhere

Well hi family,

This week has been interesting!

Sunday night we found a couple walking uphill very slowly and we stopped and talked to them. The husband had an accident about 6 months ago when he fell off a 3 story building doing construction. He is now able to walk very slowly but with breaks as he does so.

As we walked with them we learned that they were moving the next day just down the road from where they currently lived.

Before even thinking I offered to help them move. They declined at first saying that it embarrassed them to have us help them. I continued insisting on it and they accepted. We walked them back to their house to know where it was and wrote down their information for the next day.

The problem was that every Monday we have an office meeting to talk about what we are going to do that week and what needs to get done and Presidente and Sister Whitesides always set special time aside.

I called the Bishop to help me and he never got back to me so the next morning I called my district leader and he went to help them on his Pday which was very nice of him. So far we have not gotten a visit with them but we will soon.

This week was a little crazy. One Elder from El Salvador went home on Thursday but with honor. I prepared all of his things to leave and he had all of his stuff ready Wednesday night.

When missionaries go home they are given an envelope which contains certain things about their mission and what not for their stake president. It is basically how they are released as missionaries.

We had to be at the airport at 2:30am. His flight left at 5:30 and it was international.

I always make a smaller envelope for them to use with their identification and health papers while they are traveling.

After we checked his bag we were walking to the door and I handed him that envelope. Upon seeing that smaller envelope his eyes got big and he said ¨Elder Reese I have bad news.¨

I asked him what he forgot. He said he had forgotten the other envelope which I had given him the night before for his checked baggage.

At this point it was 3am and the gate to his flight closed at 4:25. We were about 40 minutes away from the house one way. There was no way we could go get it. We ended up calling other missionaries to bring it from the house. He made it home but it was not what I wanted to be doing at 3am.

A couple hours later that same day I had to send off an Elder that was going home early. It was the first one I have home like that. It was hard to watch a good missionary get on his plane before time was up. I don’t want to do that again.

Needless to say Thursday made me tired for the rest of the week. I try to go to bed early but it never works.

Dario is really progressing again. He has a new baptismal date for February 17^th. I really hope the Lord shows us what we need to do better this time to help him. 

I got my glasses. I will try and take a picture if I can. It was cool to see better. It was a bit tiring on my eyes the first couple of days.

I hope Duke is getting better. I hope that dork learned a lesson.It sounds like grandma got to spend time at our house. Remember that Mom. When I ask you to come help me when I don’t have time to like watch my dog or my kids you gotta come swooping in like Grandma Wanda.

I did get to watch President Monson´s funeral. We watched it together here in the office. It was a very good ceremony. His daughter is an interesting speaker. I noticed that every speaker gave thanks to everyone before they started their talk. They all thanked anyone and everyone that they felt they need to before doing anything else. I thought that was really cool.

My Pdays have been like this for a while though mom. I don’t know how much longer you are going to need to get used to it but it is going to be like this for a while.  (I told him that I was having a hard time getting used to his Pday on Saturday)

As for transfers, they are on the 28^th of January. I have to prepare lots of stuff. It will be boring for everyone if I explained it all but just know I have stuff to do.

Elder Alcorta will be leaving the office this transfer. He is the Elder from Argentina. Elder Stucki as well. I don’t know yet if my companion will be leaving but there is a chance. I know for a fact that I am not going anywhere though so that is news.

Anyways, have a good week everybody!! Love you all!

Con amor,

I Love Going to English Class

Hey family,

So this week has been going good so far. I am writing this on Tuesday night. 

So we had no money in the office for the last like 2 weeks because it is the end of the year and we have to close the accounts. Needless to say it is hard to run an office without money. We have all been avoiding doing any errands and it is really slowing things down.We have money now though so it is all turning around. 

I still have some hot cheetos and some gardettos and the littler snacks Santa gave me. 

Me and Elder Wright went out on Monday and all of our appointments fell through by like 7 o{clock. It also just so happened to be pouring rain. Which is perfect for contacting. When you are all wet from the rain it is a lot easier to get sympathy points. 

We contacted a whole bunch of people and Elder Wright had just turned to me and said his is some of the best contacting that I have ever done, right as we knocked on a door. The guy came up to the window and asked us who we were and I went to shake his hand and he just laughed and said "No les creo," which means I don't believe you. He then proceeded to walk away and ignore us. Elder Wright really jinxed us.

We have hit week 3 of this transfer which means that I am about to be calling families again. It got a little hectic trying to request flights and get them at the times we want. 

These last couple of days I have really seen how God chooses his leaders. 

President Whitesides never forgets ANYTHING. There are 4 secretaries in the office and he reminds all of us of things we had forgotten about in our one and only job. I don't believe there is any other way for someone to do that unless it be through God.  

 

This morning President Whitesides sent us a text to let us know that our beloved Prophet Thomas Spencer Monson had passed away the night before at 10 PM in his home.  I remember very little of President Gordon B. Hinkley and a little about the day he died. With President Monson it is different. He was the prophet that signed my mission call to send me here.  Do you guys remember the last words he personally gave to us in April?  It was about the Book of Mormon. That the time for strong testimonies in the Book of Mormon is now. If you don't have a strong testimony in the Book of Mormon now is the time to get one. 

God preserves his leaders until they can fulfill the divine nature of their calling. It is a sad day to see him go but it is also a sign that Thomas S. Monson served the Lord with everything he had and he gave us everything the Lord needed him to. There is no doubt in my mind that he is somewhere with his wife that he loved so much in a much better place.

Hey fun fact. I need glasses. I took an eye exam for free because Elder Pizarro had to go and do  some stuff so I went with him. After the test the dude explained to me that my eye sight is good but it is still failing me. He said that glasses will definitely make me see better and they will start to balance out my bad eyesight and make it perfect so that I wont need glasses when I am older. The mission doesn't cover that though so that is something we need to talk about.

We found drunk D again but this time he told us that he had a dream that God told him he needed to learn more about the Book of Mormon. He was drunk though so I don't know how much we can weigh on that. 

We had record attendance to our English classes though. There were 11 people. Elder Whiting had the class this time and he is a funny guy. He was from the first group I received at the office which means he has like less than 2 transfers in the mission. He is super happy and a good teacher he just lacked a little confidence that I made up for.  There is this little boy and his sister that always come to classes and their dad owns a pizza place and after the class he always gives us a free big pizza! I love going to English classes. 

Also, this week I have used a lot of taxis because I did a lot of errands this week.  I had a great experience though. Me and Elder Pizarro were in a taxi coming back from somewhere and he started talking to the taxi driver but he wasn't very talkative. He just answered questions very briefly. I figured I might as well make him laugh and get to know him so I started to talk to him and he started to open up a little bit more.  It turns out he is from Venezuela. He has been here a little over a year but his family is still in Venezuela. His two daughters and his wife. There are a lot of Venezuelan immigrants here in Colombia and they are usually some of the best investigators. 

We were getting close to the office so Elder Pizarro asked him a question. He said ¨If God and Christ were right in front of you here on the Earth and you had one question to ask what would it be?¨ He thought about it and replied ¨Why is there so many bad things in this world and why does he let it happen?¨ 

Immediately I thought of a scripture in Alma 14 when Alma and Amulek couldn't save all the people from being killed because it wasn't Gods will. I pulled out a Book of Mormon that I had ironically placed in my bag right before leaving for this errand. It was actually the first time I had taken my bag with us. 

As we pulled up to the office I gave it to him explaining what it was just a little and he seemed somewhat interested but then I told him that it was a gift and it was free. I will never forget the way his face lit up as I said that. He just couldn't stop looking through his new gift. He thanked us so sincerely. As we entered our building he was already reading the chapter I had left for him.

I don't know what has happened with him or what will but I know God put us in that taxi. 

So we went to the zoo today and I didn't take my camera so oops. Elder Sarnowski did though so I will send from his camera. 

Anyways that was my week! I love you guys! 

Con Amor,