Great Opposition

I feel like those two things go hand-in-hand.  It seems like that whenever a moment (or two or three) of trial and opposition come into our lives, the Lord blesses us with a moment (or two or three) of greatness that makes it all worth it.  This was a lesson that I re-learned this week.

Let me tell you what I mean.  

This week we were helping clean out an apartment when a guy pulled up in his truck and asked, "Are you guys mormons?"  When we responded "yes" he said, "That sucks."  and then proceeded to tell us about how we were living a lie, about how God isn't real, about how we need to do "real research" and learn from fossil records and things like that.  I've met a lot of people who are anti-mormons or even atheist on my mission, but this guy was easily the most rude and the least classy.  He was busting out every swear word in the book and saying every rude comment he could about how "we don't know anything" or how we've grown up in lies or.... it doesn't matter really what he said.  All that happened when he left was the four of us Elders felt a feeling of anger and, for lack of a better word, grossness.  The Spirit hadn't been there at all while he was talking and all four of us knew a whole lot better than to try and argue with him.  That never would or will accomplish anything.  Its people like that that make me more sure that this is the truth.  Its people like that that make me want to work harder, go further, knock more doors, talk to more people, invite EVERYONE to come unto Christ and feel the peace and greatness that the Spirit and the Gospel of truth brings.  

This week also had its great moments, like 2 awesome, spiritually powerful exchanges in Yankton and Vermillion, South Dakota.  The Spirit was most definitely guiding us on those exchanges, helping us to know where to go, what to do, and what to say.  There's good things happening in those areas and I know they'll continue to progress.  

I love this work.  I know its true.  I know there's opposition in all things, but I know the Lord allows it to come into our lives so that we can better recognize His hand in all things.  

I hope you have a great week!  I love you so much!

Lots of love,

Elder Zack Paddock

The Very Busy Life of the Zone Leaders

I never ever realized how busy life is as a Zone Leader until this week.  I wrote in my journal the other day how I have never felt so busy but done less teaching in my entire mission.  There's lots of things that Zone Leaders have to do like lots of planning, lots of random "errands" (like clean out an old missionary apartment of an area that got closed), and give trainings at Zone Training.  Elder Swan put it this way, "We do lots of stupid things so our zone can just focus on the work."  

Elder Swan has been out one transfer longer than me, is from San Diego, CA, and has been a ZL in Sioux City for 2 transfers.  He's also one of the funniest people I've ever met and I feel like a lot of our conversations consist of him telling stories and me laughing at them.  Its been a really fun week. 

Like I mentioned earlier, we had Zone Training this week.  It was so great to actually get to meet the Elders and Sisters of this zone and to be able to talk with them about how the work was going.  Elder Swan and I felt like the best thing that we could do would be to talk in our training about potential, setting goals, and broadening our vision.  A lot of time as missionaries, its easy to slip in "habits" and not really try anything new, even if what you're doing isn't bringing a whole lot of fruits.  This seemed to be something that the whole zone has been struggling with.  With this transfer brought changes to almost 1/2 of all the companionships in the zone, which means a lot of "newness" and a lot of potential.  We trained about how the adversary makes us think that what we're doing is "good enough"  and that he puts ideas in our heads that our areas are "fine where they're at".  This gospel and this work is to help us with our eternal progression, therefore we have to constantly be putting an effort into everything that we do.  According to our District Leaders, the whole zone really liked it and has got a lot of excitment about this transfer and the good things that are going to happen!  This week we start exchanges, so I'm excited to get to know the zone better and to work with them! 

In other news,today a member from the Sioux City 1st Ward drove all the Sioux City and Storm Lake elders down to Omaha to go to the zoo!  It really is the world's best and it was a lot of fun!  

I hope your week was great!  I love you!

Lots of love,

Elder Zack Paddock

I'm Home

Elder Hansen (He's from St. George. 
If I could serve with an English Elder, it'd be him.)

I can't believe what's happened this week.  This transfer took me completely by surprise.  Let me just give you a run-down of Transfer Call Morning last Thursday.

There I was sitting on the couch in our apartment while Elder Kummerman was in the shower and all of a sudden our phone started ringing with our President Weston ring tone.  I double checked the phone to see if that was really happening and answered it.

Elder Paddock: "Hello this is Elder Paddock."

President Weston: "Elder Paddock, good morning its President Weston."

EP:"Good Morning President, how are you?"

PW: "I'm doing well.  Elder, Are you keeping yourself clean and worthy?"

EP: "Yes"

PW: "Will you commit to 100% obedience?"

EP: "Yes"

PW: "Elder, the Lord would like you to be a Zone Leader.  Do you think you can do that for us?"

EP:  (After a moment of shock) "Yeah I think I can do that."

PW: You'll be serving with Elder Neuenswander in the SIOUX CITY area.  You should be a little familiar with that area, right?

And after an even greater moment of shock I laughed and said, "Yeah just a little bit."  Then he laughed and I laughed and then he said, "Well Elder I'm excited to be working with you a little more." and then we hung up and I waited for someone to call me and tell me it was just a giant, late April Fool's Day joke.  But it wasn't!   

Coming Home

Driving into Sioux City was one of the strangest experiences I've ever had in my entire life.  It felt like I was driving home.  Seeing these people again and working in the exact same branch I worked in for 9 months already is going to be such a great experience.  Church yesterday was so great seeing all the people who I love so much.  The greatest part was finding out the Brisenos are active members now and the even greater part was when Fernando, who got baptized my last week here, passed me the Sacrament.  Words can't accurately describe the joy that I felt yesterday. Everywhere we go to see people, they've all said, "Paddock!!  (or Padoki depending on who it is)(or De Vez en Cuando if you're Hermana Briseno) You're back!?"  Elder Swan is probably tired of it, but I think its really nice to know no one has forgotten about me.  Its good to know you're loved. 

Elder Paddock & Elder Swan: Our apartment

My new companion, Elder Neuenswander, or Elder Swan for short since no one can pronounce his name, is super great!  I'm going to have a lot of fun working with this guy.  I'm excited to learn all I can about being a Zone Leader with him and from the looks of it, our Zone is pretty sweet as well!  All the Elders and Sisters are hard working and I'm really excited to get to know them and work with them.

Leaving Crete was hard.  I love those people so much.  Elder Kummerman received an Elder named Elder Draper who was working in the Omaha spanish ward for 9 months so I'm sure that the two of them will do a lot of good out there.  I'm not worried at all.  

Saying Goodbyes to people

Elder Kummerman & Elder Paddock

Eric

Dylan

Vidal and his family

Fernando and Veronica

The District

Manuel

The Behrens family decided to cover us in Bacon.
53 packages or 36 pounds to be exact.
From Sis Behrens: I work in the knife room at a food processing plant, here in Crete. We have meat sales every once in awhile. That's where I get large quantities of bacon, bacon wrapped filets, pork chops, ribs, anything pork. they are large in quantity. As you can see, everyone gets excited about the bacon! (meat candy). The night of that picture, I was in bed not feeling well. My son, your son, and Elder Kummerman decided to find out just exactly how much bacon was in the freezer.....Now we know! I'm going to miss him!

Barbara (That was hard)

Brother Beck

Hermano Luis Genis

So that's the update for the week.  Just know I'm happier than ever and excited and nervous about this new opportunity and capacity that I get to serve in the mission.  I love this work.  I know it's the work of the Lord.   I love you all and I hope that you have a great week!

Lots of Love,

Elder Zack Paddock

In response to Mom's email "We had fun doing something totally different on a Friday night.
Will you be doing something different Friday night?"

Elder Zack, "Am I going to do something different this Friday night?  Not that I know of.  I'll have a food appointment!  That's different from the past 9 months!  We have food appointments 1-2 times a day this whole week!  I love being back in Sioux City!

Elder Paddock & Elder Swan

The Greatness of Using Members

"Your boy and a squirrel" pic sent to
Zack's mom by Dylan.  Thanks Dylan!

Holy Cow I loved General Conference!  Did you love it too?  It seemed like every question I had going into the conference was answered and more and I learned so much from the Spirit teaching me that I am so excited to put into action!  If you weren't able to go and watch it, DO IT!  It will be the greatest thing you've done all week.  

This week was filled with some pretty great other moments though!  And two of the biggest ones involved Members!

For example we were able to have a lesson in Sister Behrens' home with a lady named Mary that we've been teaching.  That lesson was powerful!  Teaching in a member's home is a completely different kind of lesson. Everyone knows that they are there to learn together and the Spirit is so strong.  Sister Behrens' testimony was powerful and EXACTLY what Mary needed to hear.  It was awesome to watch all of Mary's questions be answered one by one right there in front of our eyes and at the end, Mary said that she would be baptized as soon as she knew for certain that the things we'd taught were true.  Sister Behrens once again bore an amazing testimony on prayer which taught Mary exactly what she needed to do to know the truthfulness of these things.

Another great lesson from this week was with Eric, who is doing fantastic!   Eric's been having some questions about the Priesthood so we decided that we, along with Brother Pister, would teach about that this week.  It was great to see how Brother Pister said some of the exact same things that we've said in past lessons but in his own way and it just clicked for Eric.  That lesson was by far the best lesson with Eric that we've ever had and I know it was thanks to Brother Pister and his strong testimony that he is so willing to share.  

Members are amazing.  I love them.  I love working with these people here in Crete.  I'm sad to say this may be my last email while I'm in Crete, since transfers are this week and I've been here a fairly good while.  I guess we'll see though!  Its all in the Lord's hands.  

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

Lots of Love,

Elder Zack Paddock

Random Pictures from this week's adventures:

Capitol Building

Squirrel taming (Her name is Chaparrita)

Egg Dying (Elder Kummerman gave up after one and just started eating them)

The Funny Happenings of Missionary Work

This week was just chalk full of awkward funny moments that always remind me of why I love this work.  I don't think that if the things that have happened this week would have happened to me before the mission they wouldn't have had as much of an impact.

Let me explain.

Experiencia numero uno

I was on exchanges with Elder Shipley and we decided to go out into the middle of nowhere to try and contact a referral that was given to us by some other Elders.  I was surprised as to how great the dirt, county roads were due to the fact that it had rained the entire night before.  We got out to the guy's house, and he wasn't there.  So we drove back.  On the way back, we took one wrong turn, and got stuck in 5 inches of mud.  Of course we're out in the middle of nowhere and have absolutely no cell service.  There was no way that that car was moving.  So we waddled through the mud all the way out to one of the more likely traveled roads and waited for a car to pass by.  Finally after close to 10 minutes a truck pulled to the side and asked if we needed help.  He said that he would pull us out himself... if he hadn't broke his tow rope pulling someone else out earlier that morning.  But he said I could use his phone to call someone.  I had no idea who were were going to call.  Suddenly I had the idea to call Brother Dinopoli, a less-active member who I knew had a truck and wasn't currently working.  Brother Dinopoli hasn't wanted contact with us in a while, but I took the risk and gave him a call.  After laughing at me for taking a wrong turn and getting stuck, he said he'd be there as soon as he could to get us out.  1 hour later (which provided lots of time to just sit and talk with Elder Shipley)  Brother Dinopoli showed up and pulled us out.  Since then he's been a lot more friendly with us and even told us that we could stop by his house this week and talk to them a bit!  I honestly don't think that would've happened any other way.  The Spirit works through interesting situations to soften hearts sometimes. 

Experiencia numero dos

There we were playing basketball with Dylan.  We've been trying to get him to come to church for months now and it didn't seem like anything was working.  It got around me and went to shoot as I ran up behind him to swat the ball and SMACK!  His elbow went crashing into my nose.  Pain shot through my whole face and my nose started bleeding pretty bad.  He thought he'd broke my nose... heck I even thought he'd broke it it hurt so bad.   I walked off a little bit and finally got it to stop bleeding.  

"I'm sorry!" Dylan said, "Is there anything I can do?"

"You could come to church this week," I replied.

"I don't know about that"

"Come on,"  I said.  "What else do you have going on at 10 o clock on a Sunday Morning?"

"Plus you did just break his nose," Elder Kummerman chimed in.

"I'll think about it," He said, and we left it at that. 

Sunday Morning we texted Barbara and asked her if Dylan was coming to church with her.  She said that she wasn't going to be able to make it this week due to some sickness, but Dylan did say he would go if he could drive (He's got his permit now.)  That's progress, even if we guilt-tripped him a little bit.    I know he'll be there soon!  He's making his way there little by little.

Eric did come to church though!  He's doing great and I'm happy to see such great progress with him!  He seemed to like it and had some great questions during Gospel Principles!

I hope all is great with you guys and that you have a very happy General Conference/Easter weekend!  I love you so much!

Lots of love,

Elder Zack Paddock

PS

The church recently came out with a video about Easter called Because He Lives.

I know that Christ lives and that He truly is the reason for this Easter Season.  I pray that we can always keep Him in our hearts and that we may more better understand His Atonement.  Check the video out it's really good!

http://www.mormon.org/easter

from Elder Paddock's email to Mom:

MOM!    I just realized that exactly 6 months from today I'll be getting off the plane....... aaaaaaaaaahhhhhh.  Crazy.  That's scary.  Don't worry though.  I'm not getting trunky.  

Love you! 

The Temple and The Atonement

I realized the other day that 3/4 of my companions are in the same zone...
the only one missing is Elder Juan who's been home for almost a year now.  

Kummerman, Paddock, Holman, Shipley

This week was great!  You wouldn't think so based off our numbers, but it really was a great week, especially for 3 reasons.  One being Dylan is moving along great and I'm really excited for the progress he's making.  I made him a bet while we were playing basketball with him on Saturday that if I beat him in 1 on 1 that he would have to come to Church.  And guess what, I won!  He got smart and counted coming to the branch party that night as coming to church... smart kid.  I'll get him this week though :)

The biggest highlight of my week though was going to the temple.  I love the temple.  It is my favorite place on earth.   The Spirit that is felt in that building is stronger than anywhere else on Earth.  It truly is the House of God.  I love going to the temple with a focus each time I go so that as I sit and pay attention, the Spirit can teach me strongly.  This time my focus was the Atonement.   This week, I've had the opportunity to do a lot of thinking about the ways that we can become powerful, effective missionaries.  I've noticed that there's some missionaries who go out and work hard each and every day and are obedient to the mission rules and the commandments without a problem and love being here and never want it to end.  I've also noticed that there's missionaries who work hard, and love being here,but are excited for when its over and they can go back to "normal life" and not have as many "restrictions", which they hardly keep anyway.  I came to the conclusion that a lot of that has to do with understanding our Purpose as missionaries to "invite others to come unto Christ" and understanding the Atonement.  

Preach My Gospel says
"As your understanding of the Atonement of Jesus Christ grows, your desire to share the gospel will increase. You will feel, as Lehi did, the 'great … importance to make these things known unto the inhabitants of the earth' (2 Nephi 2:8)"  

I know this is true.  I'm thankful for the insights that I've had this week on the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the pure love that He and our Father in Heaven have for us (John 3:16).  My hope is that as we as a District put more of a focus on the Atonement in our studies and in our teaching that not only we will progress and become better missionaries and representatives of Jesus Christ, but our investigators and less actives and members will progress and become better disciples of Jesus Christ.  

This work is true.  I'm happy to be a part of it.  I invite each of you to take some time to pull out your scriptures this week and learn as much as you can about the Atonement of Jesus Christ.  Knowing more about what He has done for us not only helps us to feel more of the love of God and understand the Atonement better, but it helps us be more grateful and humble and helps us want to share this love with others.  

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

Lots of Love,

Elder Zachary Paddock

3 Things

Yesterday's beautiful sunrise

This week has been amazing!  I'm so glad that I'm still in Crete with Elder Kummerman so that I can be able to be here and see these miracles.  

One of the biggest one's that we're seeing is with a 15 year old kid named Dylan who is Barbara's son.  Back before Barbara's baptism in October, Dylan didn't want much to do with us and really all we were were the guys in shirts and ties that came over and talked to his mom.  But since then Dylan has been a lot more open with us and a lot more talkitive.  I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that because we've begun to show him that we care about him by going to play basketball with him on Saturdays his desire to talk to us has grown as well.  He just needed to know we cared.  Little by little over the past few months, Dylan has been sitting in on more discussions and asking lots of really good questions.  This last week's lesson was exceptionally good when we taught the Plan of Salvation.  When we began talking about what happens when we die, instantly Dylan perked up and began asking lots of questions.  Something (the Spirit) got him interested in the message we were sharing and instantly he wanted to learn more.  With every time we've seen him since he's been asking question after question and I'm excited to see what happens with him next. 

The St. George NOM olympics winners. 
Me for Sit UPs and Elder Hansen for Ladders

All the missionaries who participated

The Medal

Another great thing from this week was Zone Conference/ NOM Olympics.  I'm convinced that each Zone Conference gets better and better.  This Conference's focus was about teaching in the Lord's way which is "To preach my gospel by the Spirit, even the Comforter which was sent forth to teach the truth." (D&C 50:14). 

President Weston shared the story of when Elder Bednar set him apart as a Mission President.  Elder Bednar told him that there was only three things that he needed to take into the mission field:

1. The Scriptures (Direction on how the work of the Lord has been done since the beginning of time)
2. Preach My Gospel (Direction on how the work of the Lord is to be done in our days)
3. The Spirit

We talked about how incredibly important it is to utilize all three of those things out here in this area of the Lord's work.  I know that if we'll utilize those three things, that the work of the Lord will progress faster than it already is.  The work is hastening.  Our area of Crete is a prime example of that seeing that in my 9 months here, the investigator pool has doubled, Less Actives are being strengthened and coming back, and there are new people coming out of the woodwork who are interested in learning more about the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ.  I know that it has nothing to do with me being here but it has everything to do with the fact that the Lord is working on this area.  Of that I'm sure.  

I know this is the work of the Lord.  I know that Crete is where he wants me to be at this time.  I know he places each of us in areas where we can do the most good, even if we're not called to be full-time missionaries.  Look for opportunities to share the Gospel and I promise they will come. 

I hope you have a great week!  

Lots of Love,

Elder Zack Paddock

PS I won the Sit Ups competition.

From his email to his dad:

Did I tell you about church last week?  I gained a testimony of constant preparedness when I was asked to translate Sacrament Meeting to Spanish, give the Gospel Principles lesson (with a 5 minute warning before class) and translate Spanish to English for Elder's quorum since the teacher doesn't speak much English.... OH the joy's of missionary work.