I have to say I pretty much have been waiting on pins and needles since Josh's email didn't come yesterday! Now I can breathe a sigh of relief....silly mom I know. Anyway, have a terrific Tuesday everyone! Thanks for your support for the missionaries! It means so much to them and to their mamas! :)
Howdy ya'll
I'll try to answer questions first so I don't miss out on anything. The bike is good. Elder Hopkinson won't let me pay for it though so I figure I'll just return the favor and give it to somebody else when the time comes. Yes mother, you can do what you're doing with sending me emails by mail. That way there is at least one day in the week that I get mail! Yes, I have received the box, the pictures, and other things as well. If you ever get around to sending another package I request that you send those puma soccer cleats that don't fit Cam because we play flag football mostly on p-day and also I request (you're gonna think this is weird) a pair of onesie garments for onesie wednesday. My dad says I need a pair so I better listen right? Right. So those are my only requests and I probably won't need/want much more for a while! I forgot my camera but I was gonna send a picture of my dad and our sweet watermelon that was given to us. I'll take pictures of the hilly terrain of Rio Rancho too. Something funny about Rio Rancho is that the highest point of the city is the dump. We went there for service and it was awesome! Also, I am glad to hear the Packers are getting things going and that the Ducks are still undefeated. I heard that the Yankees got schooled. Everybody who is a baseball fan here was really happy about that.Thank you for the sports updates Jake and Cam. Jake, you should be receiving your letter sometime this week or next week. I have like 10 minutes in the morning while Elder Jacobs is showering and that's when I try to respond to letters so it probably takes like 3 days to finish a letter. Family can email though too. Anyway, I hope that is all the things that ya'll have asked about.
Well, this week wasn't so glorious... at all. Appointments fell through and some people's doors that we knocked on were really rude. "Don't knock on any of the doors on this street, everybody is sick of you guys! Tell the other ones not to come here either!" Yeah that was kinda frustrating. Probably the most frustrating thing of all is that we couldn't meet with T.J. and Roxy! Both times we had scheduled meetings with them something was going on so that was disappointing. But on the bright side, in the brief moments that we spoke to T.J. he said he has read from the BoM and is hoping to find the answers to his questions in it. He will find the answers for sure! I know he will, and Roxy will too!
We did have one really super awesome experience though! There is a less-active family called the Elsmore's and we don't visit them very often but everytime we do sis. elsmore says that she really needed us to be there. Her grandpa is dying and he lives in Las Cruces and there are a lot of family members down there in Cruces that don't go and help take care of the grandpa at all but she makes the drive down there pretty often with her little daughter and she just feels like she is the only person doing anything to help at all. She is also really sad that he is dying and even with her knowledge of the Plan of Salvation she is scared that she might not see him again. Elder Jacobs pulled out his bossness and shared a sweet scripture in the BoM and she knows that her grandpa was a good man and will be resting in paradise so that really comforted her. She started crying. When people cry and you are a missionary a lot of the time it is a good thing because it means they are feeling the spirit. The spirit was very strong in the room and I just felt full of joy and that I was really helping someone! I almost shed a tear bearing testimony that I know the Plan of Salvation gives us all comfort and that it is true. Then she asked for a blessing because she is really stressed and being part of blessings is always awesome! Bro. Elsmore gave the blessing and it was soooo awesome to see them feel the spirit together. Now they need to get their butts in gear and in church EVERY SUNDAY!
Speaking of church, I had my first almost normal church meeting in month and it was great! It was ward conference and our investigator until proven member Shari came so that was awesome! She always has really good questions to ask and she is really excited about learning more about the gospel. If she isn't already a member she will be pretty soon. She just needs to marry Geno. We try to talk to Geno sometimes so that we can talk to them both together about marriage. I can't wait for her to be baptized. I just wish everyone was as ready to receive the gospel as she is! That would be really convenient. I was talking to one of the other missionaries in our district and he said that the reason we call it missionary work is almost everybody will have problems like word of wisdom and law of chastity. We have to work hard to get them to the point where they are willing to give those kinds of things up. It's crazy stuff but it's worth it. I think the thing I've learned about the most so far actually being in the field is that if you don't love the people where you are serving no matter what, you won't be able to lose yourself in the work. I really pray to develop more and more charity all the time.
I read about Moroni today and it really inspired me. If everybody was like him, Satan would n't have any power over anybody. That was very inspirational to me and I'm trying to be a mini Moroni. The church is true! It's either the greatest hoax of all time or it's the greatest blessing of all time! Guess what? It's the greatest blessing of all time! Everyone can receive that witness through the power of the Holy Ghost. Moroni told me.
Ya'll will hear from me next week!
Love,
Elder Black
P.S. the internet went down in the library yesterday so that's why you got this today.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
First week in The Querque and finally some pictures!
HOWDY
First of all, whoever said it DOESN'T get cold here, I'll NEVER wear a suit, and I'll ALWAYS be under the warmth of the sun was a liar. We've had some pretty killer cold days, I've worn a suit (and needed it) everyday, and the sun has been absent sometimes. Also, it looks a lot like Moses here except the Sandia mountains are right there and that's pretty sweet. They're pretty big and awesome and we have a sweet view not far from our apartment that we can look over the entire area of the Querque and it goes right up to the mountains. I have some pictures but apparently I'm not smart enough to upload pictures and show you. I had to break out the sweet sweater 2 nights ago or else I would've frozen to death. It's good though because that makes up for the very hilly terrain of the star heights area of rio rancho, the coldness makes it so I don't burn to death! We live in a pretty nice apartment at the top of the giant hill so when we need to go back there we ride up the hill and my legs start burning. I am gonna have massive legs by the time I am done in star heights. By the way, I think there are only 2 companionships in our whole zone that are on the bikes but I personally like it. We get rides from other missionaries to the grocery store and to the library to email so that's all right. Elder Jacobs has been in this area for 3 months already so by the time I'm done being trained he will have been here for 6 months. He thinks that I'll probably stay and he will end up somewhere else.
Elder Jacobs is pretty cool though. He's funny and he knows what he is doing. On my first full day we just went around visiting people and we didn't really do much teaching at all. Just that law of chastity lesson. I asked him why we weren't teaching much and he said something dad has told me a couple of times. People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. I felt stupid because I just wanted to get out and start teaching and just getting in to missionary mode. It doesn't work like that though. There are these 8 fundamentals lessons that you're supposed to study along with PMG and one of the fundamentals is to teach people, not lessons. That's probably the thing I've gotta work on the most. I just get so worried that I'm gonna miss an important principle in the lesson and that becomes my main focus instead of focusing on what the person we are teaching really needs to hear. But it's awesome. I've met a lot of people already that need the gospel in their lives and I hope I can help them!
One of these people is Sherie. I think she's probably 50 years old or something like that and has grown up here in this area. She is the one that we taught the law of chastity to. She has been living with the same guy named Geno for about 9 years and she really just needs to get marriedbut she's afraid to be married. She was married for 30 years before and then all of a sudden that fell apart and she was being abused and whatnot so she is scared to be married again. We're trying to help resolve those concerns for her and to help her make that step and be married to Geno. Geno is a good guy but he's only been part of a lesson once. Anyway, Sherie knows the church is true and she really wants to be baptized but that is her hurdle to get over and we're trying to help her with that. Something really interesting happened yesterday though. We invited her to a baptismal service on saturday night and she went without letting us know which is fine and dandy but when she went all these floods of memories hit her and she remembered that she was baptized long ago! She isn't sure if it was in another church or not though. It's possible though because the spirit brings all things to remembrance and the spirit is definitely present at a baptismal service. Anyway, we had membership records sent for so we can know for sure if she is already a member or not. Investigator until proven member though, right?
Another man we are teaching calls himself Cowboy. One day we were riding our bikes along the road and he was walking his massive pit bull and yelled at us to stop. He just got out of jail about 3 weeks ago or something like that and he thought he should stop us because we could maybe help him out. Cowboy lives with his wife Tanya and he has quite the history. Cowboy is a recovering meth addict and has been to jail a plethora of times and he really feels ashamed for the things he has done in his life to hurt his wife and children. They have 4 kids that live with them. One is a teenager and pregnant, one is 9 and there are 2 little babies. The last time he was in jail his wife was working on divorce and stuff and it almost happened but Cowboy begged and pleaded for her to not divorce him and she gave him another chance. Cowboy really loves his family and his biggest fear is losing his wife and kids because they are all he's got... and his massive pit bull. Anyway, Cowboy asked if we could get him some counseling and we set him up with the addiction recovery plan. Addiction recovery basically focuses on the atonement and he really wants it to help. He said he hasn't done meth for 5 months but he has a lot of other addictions as well and we're working on that with him. I can tell that he really wants to change and it'll take a lot of work but all things are possible through the Lord! They want to be baptized but all those problems will definitely need to be resolved first.
2 days ago, we had a really crappy day. We went and met with a less active lady who is 70 years old and apparently she was never really converted to the gospel. She told us that when we pray we should be praying to Jesus and not to God. She also has a really huge problem with little kids getting up in testimony meeting and bearing their testimony without really understanding. She practically gave us a sermon and she is pretty dang insane. We tried to help her understand that we don't pray to Jesus and one of the reasons is that even Jesus prayed to God. He didn't pray to himself! But she wasn't having any of it and she just chooses to believe certain parts of the scriptures but some things she says aren't true. She told us we need to learn to have the spirit with us also. She's nuts. After that lesson we met with Cowboy and it just didn't go as well as we had planned. He tends to lose focus and he really wasn't focused on that day. That was basically our day. We had gone and visited a bunch of other people but nobody was home and by the time it was 8:00 we had nobody left to visit. Even though my past tracting experiences haven't gone well I felt like we should just walk from our apartment and knock on some doors. We said a prayer and off we went. I felt like we should take a left and we took a left and knocked on 3 doors. Nothing. Then the next door we knocked on we met a lady named Roxy. She was very nice and let us in and she asked us what we were doing out in the cold because it was wicked cold. We told her we were messengers from Jesus Christ and she was interested. We asked her about what her experience with religion is and whatnot and she said she was raised catholic but doesn't like what she's heard on the news about catholic priests and she has looked in to almost every religion because she wants a religious structure for her kids to grow up with. She was also kind of curious as to why there are so many churches so naturally, we taught her about the Restoration and the BoM and read the last 2 paragraphs in the introduction with her. Those paragraphs are golden by the way. She really liked that we didn't want her to take our word for it about Joseph Smith and the BoM. We also asked her that if she comes to know these things are true if she will be baptized on nov. 10th and she said yes! It was sooooooooo awesome and it pumped me up. The next day we talked to her boyfriend and the same things happened. The only problem is... they have kids and have been living together for 11 years and not married. Everybody here either has a chastity or word of wisdom problem it seems. Russel M. Nelson said that if you have problems you can ask the missionaries to help and they can help you! I know that we can and I really hope we can prepare them for baptism!
Anyway, that's my week. I have some questions though. I heard that OSU is undefeated, is that true? If so, Oregon must put a stop to that. Is Oregon still undefeated? What about the Packers? Who's in the world series? All my questions are sports questions mainly. We had stake conference so I didn't meet a bunch of members yet but that's cool that the John's emailed you mom! They are a way cool family. In the MTC I walked by a door that had new missionaries in it and I said welcome elders and then one of them yelled at me by name and I walked back to the door and lo and behold, Austin Burke in all his might and glory stood before me. We took a picture in the lunchroom but I didn't have my camera. It was awesome!
That's all I have for now! The other missionaries take an eternity to email so that's why this one is so long if you're wondering. We're gonna go play some basketball and p-ball (dodgeball with tennis balls) soon so I'll catch ya later! The church is true. Don't forget it! EVER! This gospel will help you receive exaltation!
Love all ya'll
Elder Black
Pictures:
1.) raising elder zirker from the dead
2.)Apostate missionaries
3.)District with bro. anderson
4.)Sandia mountains
5.) Elder Phillips!
6.)MTC district
7.)With bro. Sebesta
First of all, whoever said it DOESN'T get cold here, I'll NEVER wear a suit, and I'll ALWAYS be under the warmth of the sun was a liar. We've had some pretty killer cold days, I've worn a suit (and needed it) everyday, and the sun has been absent sometimes. Also, it looks a lot like Moses here except the Sandia mountains are right there and that's pretty sweet. They're pretty big and awesome and we have a sweet view not far from our apartment that we can look over the entire area of the Querque and it goes right up to the mountains. I have some pictures but apparently I'm not smart enough to upload pictures and show you. I had to break out the sweet sweater 2 nights ago or else I would've frozen to death. It's good though because that makes up for the very hilly terrain of the star heights area of rio rancho, the coldness makes it so I don't burn to death! We live in a pretty nice apartment at the top of the giant hill so when we need to go back there we ride up the hill and my legs start burning. I am gonna have massive legs by the time I am done in star heights. By the way, I think there are only 2 companionships in our whole zone that are on the bikes but I personally like it. We get rides from other missionaries to the grocery store and to the library to email so that's all right. Elder Jacobs has been in this area for 3 months already so by the time I'm done being trained he will have been here for 6 months. He thinks that I'll probably stay and he will end up somewhere else.
Elder Jacobs is pretty cool though. He's funny and he knows what he is doing. On my first full day we just went around visiting people and we didn't really do much teaching at all. Just that law of chastity lesson. I asked him why we weren't teaching much and he said something dad has told me a couple of times. People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. I felt stupid because I just wanted to get out and start teaching and just getting in to missionary mode. It doesn't work like that though. There are these 8 fundamentals lessons that you're supposed to study along with PMG and one of the fundamentals is to teach people, not lessons. That's probably the thing I've gotta work on the most. I just get so worried that I'm gonna miss an important principle in the lesson and that becomes my main focus instead of focusing on what the person we are teaching really needs to hear. But it's awesome. I've met a lot of people already that need the gospel in their lives and I hope I can help them!
One of these people is Sherie. I think she's probably 50 years old or something like that and has grown up here in this area. She is the one that we taught the law of chastity to. She has been living with the same guy named Geno for about 9 years and she really just needs to get marriedbut she's afraid to be married. She was married for 30 years before and then all of a sudden that fell apart and she was being abused and whatnot so she is scared to be married again. We're trying to help resolve those concerns for her and to help her make that step and be married to Geno. Geno is a good guy but he's only been part of a lesson once. Anyway, Sherie knows the church is true and she really wants to be baptized but that is her hurdle to get over and we're trying to help her with that. Something really interesting happened yesterday though. We invited her to a baptismal service on saturday night and she went without letting us know which is fine and dandy but when she went all these floods of memories hit her and she remembered that she was baptized long ago! She isn't sure if it was in another church or not though. It's possible though because the spirit brings all things to remembrance and the spirit is definitely present at a baptismal service. Anyway, we had membership records sent for so we can know for sure if she is already a member or not. Investigator until proven member though, right?
Another man we are teaching calls himself Cowboy. One day we were riding our bikes along the road and he was walking his massive pit bull and yelled at us to stop. He just got out of jail about 3 weeks ago or something like that and he thought he should stop us because we could maybe help him out. Cowboy lives with his wife Tanya and he has quite the history. Cowboy is a recovering meth addict and has been to jail a plethora of times and he really feels ashamed for the things he has done in his life to hurt his wife and children. They have 4 kids that live with them. One is a teenager and pregnant, one is 9 and there are 2 little babies. The last time he was in jail his wife was working on divorce and stuff and it almost happened but Cowboy begged and pleaded for her to not divorce him and she gave him another chance. Cowboy really loves his family and his biggest fear is losing his wife and kids because they are all he's got... and his massive pit bull. Anyway, Cowboy asked if we could get him some counseling and we set him up with the addiction recovery plan. Addiction recovery basically focuses on the atonement and he really wants it to help. He said he hasn't done meth for 5 months but he has a lot of other addictions as well and we're working on that with him. I can tell that he really wants to change and it'll take a lot of work but all things are possible through the Lord! They want to be baptized but all those problems will definitely need to be resolved first.
2 days ago, we had a really crappy day. We went and met with a less active lady who is 70 years old and apparently she was never really converted to the gospel. She told us that when we pray we should be praying to Jesus and not to God. She also has a really huge problem with little kids getting up in testimony meeting and bearing their testimony without really understanding. She practically gave us a sermon and she is pretty dang insane. We tried to help her understand that we don't pray to Jesus and one of the reasons is that even Jesus prayed to God. He didn't pray to himself! But she wasn't having any of it and she just chooses to believe certain parts of the scriptures but some things she says aren't true. She told us we need to learn to have the spirit with us also. She's nuts. After that lesson we met with Cowboy and it just didn't go as well as we had planned. He tends to lose focus and he really wasn't focused on that day. That was basically our day. We had gone and visited a bunch of other people but nobody was home and by the time it was 8:00 we had nobody left to visit. Even though my past tracting experiences haven't gone well I felt like we should just walk from our apartment and knock on some doors. We said a prayer and off we went. I felt like we should take a left and we took a left and knocked on 3 doors. Nothing. Then the next door we knocked on we met a lady named Roxy. She was very nice and let us in and she asked us what we were doing out in the cold because it was wicked cold. We told her we were messengers from Jesus Christ and she was interested. We asked her about what her experience with religion is and whatnot and she said she was raised catholic but doesn't like what she's heard on the news about catholic priests and she has looked in to almost every religion because she wants a religious structure for her kids to grow up with. She was also kind of curious as to why there are so many churches so naturally, we taught her about the Restoration and the BoM and read the last 2 paragraphs in the introduction with her. Those paragraphs are golden by the way. She really liked that we didn't want her to take our word for it about Joseph Smith and the BoM. We also asked her that if she comes to know these things are true if she will be baptized on nov. 10th and she said yes! It was sooooooooo awesome and it pumped me up. The next day we talked to her boyfriend and the same things happened. The only problem is... they have kids and have been living together for 11 years and not married. Everybody here either has a chastity or word of wisdom problem it seems. Russel M. Nelson said that if you have problems you can ask the missionaries to help and they can help you! I know that we can and I really hope we can prepare them for baptism!
Anyway, that's my week. I have some questions though. I heard that OSU is undefeated, is that true? If so, Oregon must put a stop to that. Is Oregon still undefeated? What about the Packers? Who's in the world series? All my questions are sports questions mainly. We had stake conference so I didn't meet a bunch of members yet but that's cool that the John's emailed you mom! They are a way cool family. In the MTC I walked by a door that had new missionaries in it and I said welcome elders and then one of them yelled at me by name and I walked back to the door and lo and behold, Austin Burke in all his might and glory stood before me. We took a picture in the lunchroom but I didn't have my camera. It was awesome!
That's all I have for now! The other missionaries take an eternity to email so that's why this one is so long if you're wondering. We're gonna go play some basketball and p-ball (dodgeball with tennis balls) soon so I'll catch ya later! The church is true. Don't forget it! EVER! This gospel will help you receive exaltation!
Love all ya'll
Elder Black
Pictures:
1.) raising elder zirker from the dead
2.)Apostate missionaries
3.)District with bro. anderson
4.)Sandia mountains
5.) Elder Phillips!
6.)MTC district
7.)With bro. Sebesta
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Address!
Just in case you didn't catch it, Elder Black's address in the querque is:
615 Vancouver Rd SE Apt. M
Rio Rancho New Mexico, 87124
And here's a cute pic from family pictures of Farmer Elder Black :)
615 Vancouver Rd SE Apt. M
Rio Rancho New Mexico, 87124
And here's a cute pic from family pictures of Farmer Elder Black :)
First letter from the field!
Hey Everyone....this is the mom. I guess any letter you may have sent to the mission home won't get to Josh, but his mailing/package address is in his email below. Thanks for all of our support, friendship and kindness to Josh! You have all made such a difference in his life! And.....away we go! Looks like he is off and running and happy doing it! :) No pictures, because apparently he is picture upload illiterate and they didn't attach correctly. Isn't that what trainers are for? Ha.
Thanks again,
Mama Black
Hello there everyone!
I have finally arrived in New Mexico and it's pretty cool here. It looks like Moses Mistake (as one of the senior missionaries told me it's called it) but it's got mountains, volcanoes, and a lot more trees. I haven't really taken any pictures of it yet but it's pretty cool. When we flew in to the airport we walked out not too far and there was president and sister Miller with the AP's Elder Nauman and Elder Rico. We had a little spiritual thought right there in the airport and then we headed out to the mission home in the Querque, we call it the Querque so it sounds like kirk not kirkeee. Make sense? Anyway, when we got there we were fed some delicious taco salad and had some training given to us about money, vehicles, cleaning and then actual missionary work. We learned about contacting people and then we we went out with experienced missionaries and knocked some apartment doors! I was with Elder Rogers, he was a field goal kicker at the U so I guess he's a stud. The first door we knocked was a Buddhist lady. She believes in the universe but hey! So do we! She wouldn't budge though and she just believes in the universe apparently. The next door was some native family and they practice indian traditions and whatnot. They said they would call us back but they wouldn't let us have their phone number so that probably isn't the best sign. The next door was a tall black man and he has met with the missionaries before, he doesn't know what he believes so we took his information and the missionaries in that area will be meeting with him. I was super nervous when I had to actually do the talking but I'll get used to it!
After that, we came back and ate dinner which was sweet and then had testimony meeting with all of us 16 newbs and that was a really spiritual experience for me. It was awesome to hear what people know to be true and to all grow in our testimony together. Then Pres. and sis. miller shared their testimonies and they are two of the most spiritual people I've ever met. Pres miller was great and we had our interviews with him afterward, he asked me my concerns about the mission and then gave me an assignment to study and that will really be awesome. I can already tell how much love he's got for me and every other missionary here. There are like 170 missionaries in our mission by the way.
After all that stuff, we went to the AP's apartment and we stayed there for the night. 11 of us were with them and the rest were with another companionship but it was crazy cool. The AP's are studs and I want to be like them so I need to study like crazy and listen to the spirit all of the time instead of just some of the time. That's what I need to work on but hey, we've all got things we need to work on! In the morning we had to wake up wicked early so we could be at transfer meeting at 6:30 and there we were assigned our new companions and our first area in the field! My companion is elder Jacobs from Salt Lake valleyish are and he's a wrestler. He's been out about 15 months I think. I haven't taken any pictures or anything with him yet because we've been busy doing greenie things. My area is in Rio Rancho so basically I'm in Albuquerque but my area is the Star Heights area. It's pretty hilly and I am on a bike. I've got a bike already from another missionary and I'm not sure what he wants me to pay yet but that will be figured out eventually I suppose. My first lesson that I'll teach in the field is in about 3 hours and we are teaching the Law of Chastity. In the MTC you don't really get to teach lessons like that. I pretty much only have taught the first 2 lessons ever so it is gonna be an interesting experience and I'm kinda nervous but here I go! All the experienced missionaries think it's hilarious that that's my first lesson but oh well.
A few important things. Could you send the blue suit to me? Our mission rule is that we wear suits everyday from october to april unless it's 75 degress or over so I need that and I might need another small duffle bag or something because I've got more material than I have room for in all my bags and whatnot. That's all I really can think of though so besides that we're golden.
My address is:
615 Vancouver Rd SE Apt. M
Rio Rancho New Mexico, 87124
If you sent anything to the mission home by chance it wasn't there today or yesterday so that means I won't see it for probably about a month because that's just how it works here. For some reason they don't forward your mail from the mission home so you can't get it until the next time you're there which will be in about a month for me. So if there's anything important to tell me in letter form just feel free to send another one to my address. Packages can be sent there too.
That's all I have for you so far! I'll let you know how the law of chastity lesson goes and everything else. I know the church is true and that Christ truly suffered for us so we can return to live with God and our families forever. Thomas S. Monson is the prophet and that is so cool that we have a prophet today.
Love all ya'll!
Elder Black
Thanks again,
Mama Black
Hello there everyone!
I have finally arrived in New Mexico and it's pretty cool here. It looks like Moses Mistake (as one of the senior missionaries told me it's called it) but it's got mountains, volcanoes, and a lot more trees. I haven't really taken any pictures of it yet but it's pretty cool. When we flew in to the airport we walked out not too far and there was president and sister Miller with the AP's Elder Nauman and Elder Rico. We had a little spiritual thought right there in the airport and then we headed out to the mission home in the Querque, we call it the Querque so it sounds like kirk not kirkeee. Make sense? Anyway, when we got there we were fed some delicious taco salad and had some training given to us about money, vehicles, cleaning and then actual missionary work. We learned about contacting people and then we we went out with experienced missionaries and knocked some apartment doors! I was with Elder Rogers, he was a field goal kicker at the U so I guess he's a stud. The first door we knocked was a Buddhist lady. She believes in the universe but hey! So do we! She wouldn't budge though and she just believes in the universe apparently. The next door was some native family and they practice indian traditions and whatnot. They said they would call us back but they wouldn't let us have their phone number so that probably isn't the best sign. The next door was a tall black man and he has met with the missionaries before, he doesn't know what he believes so we took his information and the missionaries in that area will be meeting with him. I was super nervous when I had to actually do the talking but I'll get used to it!
After that, we came back and ate dinner which was sweet and then had testimony meeting with all of us 16 newbs and that was a really spiritual experience for me. It was awesome to hear what people know to be true and to all grow in our testimony together. Then Pres. and sis. miller shared their testimonies and they are two of the most spiritual people I've ever met. Pres miller was great and we had our interviews with him afterward, he asked me my concerns about the mission and then gave me an assignment to study and that will really be awesome. I can already tell how much love he's got for me and every other missionary here. There are like 170 missionaries in our mission by the way.
After all that stuff, we went to the AP's apartment and we stayed there for the night. 11 of us were with them and the rest were with another companionship but it was crazy cool. The AP's are studs and I want to be like them so I need to study like crazy and listen to the spirit all of the time instead of just some of the time. That's what I need to work on but hey, we've all got things we need to work on! In the morning we had to wake up wicked early so we could be at transfer meeting at 6:30 and there we were assigned our new companions and our first area in the field! My companion is elder Jacobs from Salt Lake valleyish are and he's a wrestler. He's been out about 15 months I think. I haven't taken any pictures or anything with him yet because we've been busy doing greenie things. My area is in Rio Rancho so basically I'm in Albuquerque but my area is the Star Heights area. It's pretty hilly and I am on a bike. I've got a bike already from another missionary and I'm not sure what he wants me to pay yet but that will be figured out eventually I suppose. My first lesson that I'll teach in the field is in about 3 hours and we are teaching the Law of Chastity. In the MTC you don't really get to teach lessons like that. I pretty much only have taught the first 2 lessons ever so it is gonna be an interesting experience and I'm kinda nervous but here I go! All the experienced missionaries think it's hilarious that that's my first lesson but oh well.
A few important things. Could you send the blue suit to me? Our mission rule is that we wear suits everyday from october to april unless it's 75 degress or over so I need that and I might need another small duffle bag or something because I've got more material than I have room for in all my bags and whatnot. That's all I really can think of though so besides that we're golden.
My address is:
615 Vancouver Rd SE Apt. M
Rio Rancho New Mexico, 87124
If you sent anything to the mission home by chance it wasn't there today or yesterday so that means I won't see it for probably about a month because that's just how it works here. For some reason they don't forward your mail from the mission home so you can't get it until the next time you're there which will be in about a month for me. So if there's anything important to tell me in letter form just feel free to send another one to my address. Packages can be sent there too.
That's all I have for you so far! I'll let you know how the law of chastity lesson goes and everything else. I know the church is true and that Christ truly suffered for us so we can return to live with God and our families forever. Thomas S. Monson is the prophet and that is so cool that we have a prophet today.
Love all ya'll!
Elder Black
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Sister :)
I got my own personal letter from Josh :) I thought I wanted to keep it to myself but I'll be less selfish and share a blurb from it. I love this kid and I'm thankful for him too! Thanks for the blessings baby bro!
Week 2 at the MTC!
Hello there everybody!
I have survived week number 2 without any injuries or anything like that from all of my intense 4 square battles. Cam was right, 4 square is actually way intense and totally worth it. A lot of people in gym time will play and we have some pretty crazy duels doing it. Just so you know, I was a champion twice this week. I also play some of the real sports in there too like basketball and volleyball. There is this one kid in my gym time that dominates at both volleyball and basketball so that's pretty sweet. He's nuts.
This week was a lot harder than last week for me. I've had my slumps and been pretty discouraged at times but I'll get over it. My zone leader Elder Wilson who is going to Thailand was just like, "Elder Black, the only way to grow and become a good missionary is by getting whooped." It's true too. Last week was so awesome and I was just on a spiritual high having a ton of success teaching our investigators but this week it was just a lot harder and we weren't having success. But don't worry about me because I'm a Black and we do hard things all the time.
I'm glad to hear that the ducks and packers are winning their games. That sucks about losing to the seahawks though. Some kids in my district are seahawks fans and they thought the whole situation was hilarious but that's ok. Hopefully oregon and the packers are champions this year. If that happens I'm sure it will be directly related to my righteousness out here. Just kidding. That's not really true but I hope they win, that would be really cool.
We had some really cool devotionals. We had this guy come speak to us named Elder Jensen and he has seen more mission calls made than anyone in church history. The apostles rotate to do the call making and he is the one that is always there no matter what so that was pretty cool. He basically told us that we have to be our own first convert before we can expect to bring about conversion in other people's lives. I thought that was really cool and it motivated me to work a lot harder. Sometimes our district can't stay focused in study time so we leave and go somewhere else or we just try to calm each other down. Our teachers Bro. Sebesta and Bro. Anderson have been really hitting it into our heads that we need to be having revelatory experiences when we pray and study. Bro. Sebesta said "prayer unlocks the door by which the floodgates of revelation can be opened." What I learned from that is that I need to pray more and a lot more sincerely if I want to receive answers for myself and my investigators. I thought that was something really cool that I needed to hear. We also watched a talk by Elder Holland on Sunday and it was basically saying that if you don't work hard on your mission and make it the biggest growing experience of your life, your life won't be what you want it to be. You know how Elder Holland is. Intense. Another cool thing that he said is that missionaries have apostolic right to preach the gospel and that's given them by the quorum of the 12. Apostolic keys with a lower case "a." That's really cool though, I've been called of God and given the privilege and duty to serve Him and preach His gospel and invite people to come unto Him. That just motivated me a lot to be the best missionary I can be no matter what. And if I get discouraged or anything, I just think about Grandma's advice, "If you have a bad day, just remember tomorrow is a completely new day." Best advice ever and it's what is getting me through here.
I tried to upload pictures to attach to this but it isn't working because my camera doesn't have enough juice in it to stay on so I'm really sorry about that. I have about 57902345890278907 pictures too =(
Anyway, we're flying out of here on the 8th next monday. Our flight leaves at 9:50 so you can expect a phone call sometime before then. I'm excited to leave and be in New Mexico finally. Even though I've only been here about 2 weeks i'm starting to get anxious to leave. I want to do all the cool missionary things that missionaries do in the real world instead of this confined space that you can never leave except for the temple or soccer. I can't wait to find people and teach them about the great love that God has for them and His plan for them to return to Him. Don't get me wrong, the MTC is great but I am glad I'm not staying here 12 weeks like the missionaries to Thailand have to stay.
I know the church is true and the BoM is the word of God. Joseph Smith truly saw God the Father and Jesus Christ and translated the BoM. Christ suffered for us so that we can experience peace in our lives if we but come to Him. This is all true and so real and I won't take my knowledge for granted. My favorite scripture for the week is Alma 32. Read it. It's awesome.
Talk to you soon and I will return with honor,
Elder Black
I have survived week number 2 without any injuries or anything like that from all of my intense 4 square battles. Cam was right, 4 square is actually way intense and totally worth it. A lot of people in gym time will play and we have some pretty crazy duels doing it. Just so you know, I was a champion twice this week. I also play some of the real sports in there too like basketball and volleyball. There is this one kid in my gym time that dominates at both volleyball and basketball so that's pretty sweet. He's nuts.
This week was a lot harder than last week for me. I've had my slumps and been pretty discouraged at times but I'll get over it. My zone leader Elder Wilson who is going to Thailand was just like, "Elder Black, the only way to grow and become a good missionary is by getting whooped." It's true too. Last week was so awesome and I was just on a spiritual high having a ton of success teaching our investigators but this week it was just a lot harder and we weren't having success. But don't worry about me because I'm a Black and we do hard things all the time.
I'm glad to hear that the ducks and packers are winning their games. That sucks about losing to the seahawks though. Some kids in my district are seahawks fans and they thought the whole situation was hilarious but that's ok. Hopefully oregon and the packers are champions this year. If that happens I'm sure it will be directly related to my righteousness out here. Just kidding. That's not really true but I hope they win, that would be really cool.
We had some really cool devotionals. We had this guy come speak to us named Elder Jensen and he has seen more mission calls made than anyone in church history. The apostles rotate to do the call making and he is the one that is always there no matter what so that was pretty cool. He basically told us that we have to be our own first convert before we can expect to bring about conversion in other people's lives. I thought that was really cool and it motivated me to work a lot harder. Sometimes our district can't stay focused in study time so we leave and go somewhere else or we just try to calm each other down. Our teachers Bro. Sebesta and Bro. Anderson have been really hitting it into our heads that we need to be having revelatory experiences when we pray and study. Bro. Sebesta said "prayer unlocks the door by which the floodgates of revelation can be opened." What I learned from that is that I need to pray more and a lot more sincerely if I want to receive answers for myself and my investigators. I thought that was something really cool that I needed to hear. We also watched a talk by Elder Holland on Sunday and it was basically saying that if you don't work hard on your mission and make it the biggest growing experience of your life, your life won't be what you want it to be. You know how Elder Holland is. Intense. Another cool thing that he said is that missionaries have apostolic right to preach the gospel and that's given them by the quorum of the 12. Apostolic keys with a lower case "a." That's really cool though, I've been called of God and given the privilege and duty to serve Him and preach His gospel and invite people to come unto Him. That just motivated me a lot to be the best missionary I can be no matter what. And if I get discouraged or anything, I just think about Grandma's advice, "If you have a bad day, just remember tomorrow is a completely new day." Best advice ever and it's what is getting me through here.
I tried to upload pictures to attach to this but it isn't working because my camera doesn't have enough juice in it to stay on so I'm really sorry about that. I have about 57902345890278907 pictures too =(
Anyway, we're flying out of here on the 8th next monday. Our flight leaves at 9:50 so you can expect a phone call sometime before then. I'm excited to leave and be in New Mexico finally. Even though I've only been here about 2 weeks i'm starting to get anxious to leave. I want to do all the cool missionary things that missionaries do in the real world instead of this confined space that you can never leave except for the temple or soccer. I can't wait to find people and teach them about the great love that God has for them and His plan for them to return to Him. Don't get me wrong, the MTC is great but I am glad I'm not staying here 12 weeks like the missionaries to Thailand have to stay.
I know the church is true and the BoM is the word of God. Joseph Smith truly saw God the Father and Jesus Christ and translated the BoM. Christ suffered for us so that we can experience peace in our lives if we but come to Him. This is all true and so real and I won't take my knowledge for granted. My favorite scripture for the week is Alma 32. Read it. It's awesome.
Talk to you soon and I will return with honor,
Elder Black
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