Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Doing the Little Things



We decided to take a back country road home from Stake Conference. 
This view right here is EXACTLY what I thought my mission would look like.
  Driving tons of miles on an endless dirt road with
 only one house for every mile of road. 
This week was an interesting one for sure.  The work has started to pick up again this week, thank goodness!  We were only 1 lesson shy of our 20 lesson a week goal.  We're working hard and the Lord is continuing to bless us beyond measure.  

This week was full of little moments that just made me smile.  Those are usually the kind that end up in my journal every night so I thought I'd write home about them as well! 

The first of which happened Monday night when the AP's gave me permission to call the Brisenos!  I hadn't talked to them since I left Sioux City more than 3 months ago!  Hermana Briseno answered the phone and said, "Who is this?"  and I just replied "Elder De Vez en Cuando" and she flipped!  She got so excited and yelled at her husband, "Hey Viejo (Old Man)!  Guess who's on the phone!"  Oh was so great to talk to them and find out they're doing well.  Apparently now they're fully active and have gone to church every Sunday for the past 6 weeks!  She told me, "We're going to keep going to church until God tells us not to"  and I promised her that He would never tell them that.  It was good to talk to my favorite, old, sarcastic Hispanic couple again.  I've missed them a ton.

The next moment was just the other night when, by some kind of miracle, we had a member come down from Seward and another come down from Lincoln and we were able to do what's called "Splits", where one missionary goes with one member  and the other missionary with another.  I've never done those before in the whole year I've been out so it was fun to try something new and be able to do twice the amount of work in one night.  Brother Thompson from the Seward Branch and I were able to go and teach a few of our English investigators and Barbara and it was just another testimony builder to me of how essential the members are in this work.  Brother Thompson was way better at relating to the people than I could ever be since he is a "normal" person with a job, a family, life experiences that I haven't had yet.  There was a connection that he was able to make that will help those people to be able to progress better.    That was a lot of what was talked about during this week's Stake Conference, which Elder Holman, Elder Robinson, Elder Pulver, and I were in charge of translating for the Spanish members  of the Stake.  

This was the first time that I've ever really translated.  I've done a couple testimony meetings in the past, just because that's always when it ended up being my turn to do it, and those aren't too bad, but yesterday, translating full-on 15 mintue talks was something new.  I've decided there's nothing quite as humbling for a US Spanish speaking Missionary as is translating.  I thought I was doing fairly well on Spanish, but when the guy I was translating got up and started talking about Navy Seal Boot Camp and comparing the excercises to the Gospel.... I got lost.  Luckily the Spirit was able to give me some kind of words to say to be able to help the people I was translating for make sense of everything, but I definitely learned that there's still a lot of things in Spanish that I don't know.  I'm thankful for that.  I translated the whole first half hour of the meeting, Elder Holman the second, Elder Robinson the third, and Elder Pulver the fourth.  I highly enjoyed it and I hope they'll give us the opportunity again.

But I think the lessons that were shared about Missionary Work during this Stake Conference were very important.  I really enjoyed one of the one's that I translated for that talked about doing the "little things" and strenghtening our own testimonies before we help others.  The Little Things can usually be summed up using "primary answers" like prayer, scripture study, tithing, going to church, going to the Temple, FHE, etc.  Things that sometimes we don't realize are quite as important as they really are.  I really like the scripture that was shared from Alma 37:6 that says, "Now ye may suppose that this is foolishness in me; but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass"  

It's true.  100%.  My invitation to you this week is to think about the "little things" and pick one to work on this week, whether it be scripture reading, or prayer, or going to the temple.  Whatever it may be, I can promise  you that your week will be better.  Will you do that?

I love you all and I hope you have a great week!  

Lots of Love,
Elder Zack

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