Hey Everyone!
What a crazy week it has been! So much has happened and I will do my best to write about it.
Last Monday, we went to the Plane Museum at the airforce base. That was super cool and there were a lot of different airplanes than hill airforce base (some were the same though). Then Monday evening, we did some service for this part member family and moved some rocks in their backyard.
Tuesday, we had District Council and that was super good! We had a lot of finding time this day and we found this super awesome guy in these town homes, so I am excited to see how we can help Him!! That night, we found a younger person and taught about prayer. We think that he really liked it and felt God’s love for him :). I always love teaching that principle because it is crazy how many people don’t believe in a God that loves them. But I know that God does love all His Children :).
Wednesday, we had service at the food pantry, and this week I got a cool shirt with their church’s logo on it, and I found that super funny (a missionary with a Trinity Food Pantry shirt). That was super awesome, and I was glad that we were able to help all of those people! Wednesday evening, we had a nice lesson with another friend that we met last week. We aren’t sure how interested she really is, but we taught the beginning of the Restoration, which included that God is our loving Heavenly Father again :). This night, the Sisters assigned us to teach English class, so that was quite an adventure haha! It went good though.
Thursday morning, we went to Chick Fi LA and met up with someone who we got in contact with a couple days before. We had a super good lunch lesson and they said they want to work towards baptism, so that was super cool! His schedule makes it a little hard to meet consistently, but we will keep trying to stay in touch with him! We also had weekly planning, but that kept getting inturruoted with phone calls and other things. We got it done though, and so that is super awesome.
Friday is kind of where it gets a little crazy! The morning was pretty normal. We decided to go tracting the old fashioned way, and we got to talk to a bunch of people. Makes me sad when they say, “I’ve got Jesus” and close the door. I don’t think they truly understand what they are saying no to; but I guess that is just one 1/8 seeds planted that it statistically takes before anyone will listen to the missionaries. (If I remember correctly, it takes 8 contacts with someone before they will actually listen to what a missionary has to say). But Friday evening was the Ward Fall Festival party and that was super awesome! We had 3 of our friends and family come and each of them had a great experience! The Missionaries and bishopric were the Chili cook off judges, so that was fun to be a part of. A lot of the costumes were super cool too. #tendermercy, at the end of the night, there were two passifyers (spelled wrong, I know haha) that were found. Bishop recognized them as one of our friends and they had already left. We went to drop it off at their house after the fact and had an awesome conversation in explaining what we do as missionaries. This friend had a great time, and while their schedule is super busy, they said they want to come to church with us if they ever had work off!
Saturday got even crazier! We had so many lessons and one of them was for one of the families that came to the fall fest. The lesson was super spirit led and we got to play restoration Jenga which worked perfectly to help them understand. Essentially the Jenga tower is the church and some of the blocks have words of important parts of the church. When the tower falls, everyone tries to get as many blocks as they can. Then with the blocks you get, you make your own little church. We tie that into apostacy and why there are so many churches and it is always a fun way to teach why the restoration is necessary so that Christ’s church can be on the earth again. Long story short, we put these two friends on date for baptism, so that was a big highlight of the week for sure! After that, we went to another family’s house that came to the fall fest and had a pretty good lesson with them too. There were two pit bulls that were actually nice, but very distracting for the lesson, so hopefully next time we meet we can figure out the best way to handle that situation. We ended up changing clothes (our current ones got all dogified lol), and went to a dinner with the Kimball family. We had deer tacos, and it was actually super sweet!
Then to keep it going, Sunday came around and before church, we had a fantastic lesson with one of the friends that the previous Elders were teaching it was the first lesson we have had with her, but the spirit was so strong and the members that were there bore such powerful testimonies. Super awesome lesson, and I am excited for our next one with her! Then our two friends who are on date made it to church, and they seemed to really like it too! After church, we went over to the family we returned the pacifyers to and had a super awesome lesson and got to know them a little bit better. They said they’d like to work towards baptism as well so that was hype!
One of the things that President Farias has really been pushing is that our missionary purpose is to help people to participate in the Atonement and the only way that we can do that is by helping them to be baptized. As such, mentioning and teaching to Baptism has been a really big focus as a mission as a whole. It has been a really cool focus and I am grateful for it as fulfilling our missionary purpose brings so much joy. Doesn’t make it any easier or harder, but it does definitely make it better haha.
For a spiritual thought, I wanted to share a couple thoughts on that first point I mentioned earlier about God being our loving Heavenly Father. Last week, there was someone we were talking to who was claiming that God’s love was conditional and that all of the scriptures that talk about it are only reffering to a specific group of people. Clearly my poor brother has been confused, but it really got me thinking. How much easier is the job of the adversary if we as God’s Children lose sight of that. If we think that God is against us, and that he wants to give us rules that don’t even matter, how much easier and appatizing is it to fall into temptation? As we teach people that God is our Loving Heavenly Father and that the commandments are the way to live life in such a way that will bring happiness; the only way to love life to find happiness, then that whole mental shift is HUGE! No wonder why that is the first thing that we teach people ?. I know that we truly are all Children of God. He loves you personally, and he is always there for you, even through the hardest times. As we put our trust in Him, who does everything out of Love, we can learn that Love is the greatest motivator and as we keep His commandments, we will find the happiness that He promises :). Don’t get it stuck in your head that it will be easy, but that it will be worth it. The joy that comes as we choose the right will always be worth it. I say that in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Hope that y’all have a fantastic week! Love ya!
-Elder Claussen
