What it's really all about

I had the joyful and unexpected opportunity to baptize a woman on Saturday, whom I also interviewed for baptism last week. We also got to witness a baptism of a girl who I had the chance to interview last week as well. Our district is unified in the work and it is apparent in our district oneness in baptisms. While the people every area aren’t yet prepared to yield baptisms, they are on the way, I can assure you!

We got to go to the temple visitor's center yesterday with our investigator and her two kids. She's progressing so well and can practically be called a member who hasn't yet been baptized.

Yesterday, in addition to attending for the sake of being apart of the confirmations of the two lovely souls, Elder Rees and I happily attended Council Creek ward because we had one of our enduring investigators attend church for the first time! Super exciting and fulfilling after I have worked with him since Elder Wohlleben and I came together.

The work moves along. I am running along just to keep up. Let us all press on in the same!

District P-day in Portland

Last Monday, after emailing you all that brief soliloquy, Elder Rees and I joined the rest of our district at the MAX station in Hillsboro and headed downtown for a trip of fun. We traversed the usual bizarre places of Portland for the sake of introducing Elder Rees, Sister Renslow, and Elder Walker (all greenies comprising half our district) to the oddities of life. I bought a dozen voo doo doughnuts and we all shared the few and far between tasty morsels, varying from fruit loop covered to pixy stick dust covered to Oreo and frosting covered (my favorite) pastries. It was fun being having half our district  be greenies who all but one came out together, and the other three of us having come out together at the same time. Sister Peart, Elder Hatch and I all had different aspects of downtown that we shared with the others including visiting the smallest park in the world in the middle of a street intersection and a revisit to Powell Books to discover the Mormon section of literature.

To end our P-day, Elder Walker and I joined forces and conquered his area on foot for a day. He used his youth and zeal to inspire me to new heights of thought. We met several people who were quite interesting. One of which, was a superb artist and showed us around his house of incredibly detailed and beautiful paintings. He even painted a portrait of some bald Star Trek dude and mentioned he was a Trekkie and Star Wars fan like me - yay! He had several paintings of Native American Indians and chiefs to which I attempted to guide the conversation towards their principle ancestors, the Lamanites of the Book of Mormon. It's super fun to determine how to transform casual conversations into Gospel-related dialogues. Oh, the many hobbies of a missionary.

For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.
(1 Peter 4:6)

On Wednesday, we had a zone meeting in which I learned more about faith. Do we have the faith to be [fill in the blank] (i.e. healed) by Christ and His Atonement? The Zone Leaders guided and instructed us to ponder how we teach people. Our main purpose as missionaries begins with us striving to strengthen others' faith in Christ and His Atonement. However, often times it seems that we lack the faith to allow investigators and people to live the commandments and keep the commitments we invite them to make on their own. Often times we are too caught up in "how can I personally help this investigator do this certain thing" (read the Book of Mormon, pray to gain a testimony, live a commandment) and are not relying as much on "how can The Lord help this investigator do this certain thing."

When we exercise faith in the Lord enough to allow Him to perform miracles, that is when they happen. Not only after all we can do. An experience near the end of my week also elaborated this point.

As the subject line of this email suggests, I came down with a case of the stomach flu from about Thursday to Saturday. When my pains began on Thursday, I attempted to fight the cold myself by gagging myself with the dreaded pink stuff (Pepto Bismol), downing vitamin C left and right (practically like candy), and eventually setting aside my pride and coming into rest for a time. Despite all my efforts I was still feeling the discomfort of some abominable monster pounding at my insides. I referred to this being as my enemy, a "tummy ape." (lol - Mom, you and David know what I'm talking about).

So, as we always should do first, I turned to the Lord and placed my faith in Him and His powers. Similar to Enos' experience, "my soul [ached]; and I kneeled down before my Maker, and I cried unto him in mighty prayer and supplication for mine own [stomach]." I also requested a blessing from my dear companion and a member. As I "waited upon the Lord," Sunday morning came and even though I began fasting that very morning, "my joy was as exceeding as was my pain" and I could "remember [my pains] no more."

I learned a great lesson this week about faith. I invite everyone who reads this to answer the question for themselves - what does it mean to you personally to have faith in the Lord? Are you, like me, just going to the Lord after you exhaust your own efforts, or can we all use the Lord's enabling powers a little more to the fullest? I know that Jesus Christ has power to do anything and so do we with God. I know that I can be more diligent in trusting the Lord that He can and will help me do all things.

Unto every creature. . .

"And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature" (Mark 16:15).

This letter is going to be quick cause I ran out of time. We've had a fun and great last week. check out the pictures. They're each worth a thousand words... just sayin. General Conference was brilliant - if you didn't get a chance to watch it all - check it out here: gc.lds.org. I love all of you!

A special Easter week

This last week, I've seen many miracles in the work, let alone my own life. Earlier in the week I wanted to become even more dedicated as a missionary to the focus and rules of the mission. As my companion and I stretched the limits of obedience (since we were already obedient in action) by being further obedient in heart and mind, we immediately saw the blessings unfold. As many hours of possible work in the day we had -- that many hours of work were recorded. If one were to look at the math, they would discover that missionaries should be out working at the very least 40 hours, yet not many times are they recorded as such (due in part to cancelled appointments and people's agency). However, I know that as Elder Rees and I put our faith in being exactly obedient as Helaman's stripling warriors were, we saw the windows of heaven open upon us. It being the beginning of the new transfer allowed me to start afresh and new as though I were resurrected a new body of thought. Go Easter!

I happened across seeing my old companion and his parents when we went to visit one of our investigators this last Wednesday. Although it was just Monday that he was "transferred into his parent's hands," it feels like an eternity since he was here. It's weird how mission time works in our heads.

On Saturday, we went and helped a member out on his farm since he has been having back problems and his helpers were sick. It was a fun time and I learned a lot about the Atonement in symbolism that day. We helped him put up some wire fence dividers for the cows to roam around in. This required pulling large wooden posts in and out of the ground to reposition the fence line. As I lifted one of the fence posts onto my right shoulder, the farmer member's wife pointed out that she had been reading Jesus the Christ lately and asked me if I had ever wondered how heavy Christ's cross must have been. I hadn't really in a physical sense, but as I lifted those posts I realized that on top of the rest of the suffering Christ had on His shoulders, He carried the weight of a cross probably comparable in weight to the one I was. While I was sweating under the heat of the sun and after a few measly hours of work, I can't imagine trying to lift such a weight after the extremity of pain and exhaustion Jesus went through. It gave me a great understanding and appreciation for His life and death.

Many people we've been talking to bring up Easter and it's interesting to find out from them that they celebrate Easter in light of His death as the focus. I am grateful that we have revelation and guidance in our day to acknowledge and recognize the gravity and importance of focusing on His renewed life and rebirth that He experienced in the Resurrection.

I was led to ponder it more on Easter Sunday yesterday as most of the programs in Sacrament Meeting and Sunday School and Priesthood Meeting were centered on the Resurrection. I cherished to opportunity to be able to sing in the Ward Choir an Easter Medley that heralded a combination of a few hymns - "He is Risen" "Christ the Lord is Risen today" and I think one more. One man sang beautifully, "The Holy City." For Easter dinner, one of our favorite member families had us over for a themed dinner with lamb and unleavened bread and bitter herbs and such. It was neat. Having Christ be the center of this holiday provides much food for thought for the season. However, I feel like this has just been an increased center for my mission. I am grateful to be serving Him and learning Him.

Today some more of our favorite members took us to Tillamook to show the coast and the Tillamook to Elder Rees and Elder Walker (Elder Hatch's new companion). It was a fun day and now we're ready to head back to work after a quick trip to the grocery store. Hope everyone's week is well!